A Tug and a Rug

Not done much today other than enjoy another LCFC victory, over Villa.

Unlike a great many other people, my garden moth trap has so far yielded precisely zero moths. I was especially hopeful of something last night with such mild temps, but soon realised that was unlikely when stepping out during the evening into full-on late October-like blustery wind. My garden trap never does well in strong wind, particularly in the early and late season which perhaps highlights that many of the moths turning up here have at least flown further than the immediate vicinity.

It wasn't all fruitless though; when I stepped out I had a torch, but stupidly no phone/camera. So by the time I'd clocked the Wood Mouse feeding under the bird feeders, it had already clocked me and was not going to hang around whilst I grabbed a photographic implement. I also found a couple of spiders, and a fly that I managed to pot (as I did have one of those with me).

I knew the fly was either Hellinia or Phaonia, and worked out it was the latter after trawling through some of Mike Hackston's keys and on-line images. I pinned it, grabbed a few quick shots and left it for this morning to try and work through. I have to say it wasn't easy, and I'm not going to spend the next hour walking through the whole lot. But I will post some images with coloured bits on that I think are sufficient to confidently name it as a female Phaonia tuguriorum - again a more than expected common fly. They won't include detailed shots of leg bristles cause I haven't taken any.

Darkened cloud around cross-veins, slight bulge along costal edge of wing and slight red-yellow tinge to tip of scutellum.

Pre-alar bristle (cyan dot) clearly longer than second notopleural bristle (yellow dot). Not annotated, but profile of face shows mouth edge not clearly more prominent than frons. Also not annotated, but note all femora and tibia are reddish except for the darkened front femur.

Red arrows: no pre-sutural acrostichal bristles, one pair of post-sutural acrostichal bristles. Cyan dots: 2 pre-sutural and four post-sutural dorsocentral bristles.

Red arrows: eyes hairy and red-yellow tinge to antennal bases. Yellow arrows: subjectively, frons at vertex more than 2/5 of width of head, jowl at base of eye about same as half the height of the eye. Ish. What I can't see/show are the palps which should be red-yellow at basal third.

Yesterday I finished sieving the flood debris I brought home. As expected, the number and range of beetles increased as I got towards the bottom of the bag - albeit mainly the number and range of small Staphs. There were another couple of both Pterostichus vernalis and Bembidion biguttatum, a couple of Badister bullatus and among the small but at least discernible Staphs I noted one that looked to have an oddly shaped pronotum. I worked it through Mike Hackston's keys as far as Rugilus sp. and saw that looked right when checking images. But I couldn't find a key to those in Mike's file. But I did find one by Volker Assing 2012, albeit one that covered all Palearctic and Oriental regions and the first four species that are separated in couplets are non-British. But the beetle matched up to Rugilus orbiculatus which is by far the most likely species anyway.

Note the rear angles of the elytra are yellowish, and the femora are yellowish with darker apices. And the odd shaped pronotum! I will get some more debris in the week, but it's still mainly Carabids that I'm hoping for.

Records for these two will be submitted, hopefully there will be none of this ....

Strange

It's not that long ago that, somehow, I'd never seen Fly Agaric. Whilst at Charnwood Lodge I found loads of fruiting bodies underneath the canopy of otherwise exposed trees ....

I also found an earthball in moss at the edge of a wooded area, which from the large diameter (c10mm) must be Scleroderma citrinum [Common Earthball].

I've had another play with some squeezed moss soup. I've managed to get some text and measurements from the camera software to merge onto the image, here's another testate amoeba with a 100micron line for scale.

I can't get the measurement data to transfer to the video clips yet though, so will probably need to dimension snaps to accompany them. Here's a rotifer of some sort (I think!) - look at the extent of the disturbance it's causing whilst 'hoovering' .... this is all happening within a merest veneer of soup under a cover-slip - it's ridiculous really.

Meanwhile, I have absolutely no idea what this weird thing is propelling itself around using cilia of some sort.

Believe it or not though, that's far from the strangest thing I've seen all day ...

I do like Isabella Rossellini, and I'm not at all surprised that sado-maschism excites her. There's a whole load of these on the 'Green Porno' Youtube channel, all equally weird yet informative.

A Tick on My Neck

I crashed into a bit of an old-man sleep on the settee last night after dinner, and by the time I came round I couldn't be arsed with blogging. And it's not like there was nothing to blog about either!

Yesterday was another sunny day with slightly less breeze. Everytime I nipped out to the garden with the camera, just when it looked like there was something to point it at another blasted Eristalis pertinax would come in and disturb the quarry. I found my self openly berating the said hoverflies as complete fucking idiots. I then realised that vocally remonstrating with diptera was perhaps a sign that being confined to barracks really was driving me bonkers. [I should mention that my very recent confinement is more about dealing with some sort of excrutiatingly painful inflammation in my left big toe joints. Gout? Athritis? Rickets?]

Anyway, whilst stood there pointing at hoverflies and swearing at them, I felt a tickle on my neck. The kind of tickle that instinctively makes you grab at it and have a look. On my fingertip was a tiny black dot - too small to see any detail with the naked eye but big enough to immediately point the camera at and have a look. Bugger me!

An inconspicuous ladybird, Nephus quadrimaculatus no less. A full tick for me, and amazingly up until 27/03/2020 this had never been recorded in VC55. One was beaten from ivy, which in turn prompted a bit of action and another couple of records have been made along with other inconspicuous ladybirds (including the first VC55 Scymnus interruptus and the first VC55 Horseshoe Ladybird since 1872). So finding this in such a lucky manner was pretty amazing, the only bashing or beating involved was me shouting at hoverflies. Anyway, I immediately stuck it in a pot that I had in my pocket - and then realised the pot had previously housed both a Mompha subbistrigalis and an Epermenia chaerophyllella netted in the garden. The tiny beetle was now scuttling around with a liberal coating of scales. I brought it in, got the news out and cleaned it up for another shot - not that's it's much better.

Otherwise, the Eristalis managed to completely mess with my mind. I'd noticed what appeared to be a large pale and fluffy-looking fly buzzing around but not landing. Eventually it did settle, and I cautiously approached it expecting something interesting .... only to note that it was a completely shit-looking Eristalis pertinax. I wondered if it was just very worn, one suggestion on the UK Hoverflies group was that it was actually just covered in dust and dirt after emergence. Great - these are going to keep messing me about for weeks.

Wanker

I did manage to point the camera at another hoverfly though, and after scrutinising the picture I came to the conclusion that it was new for me - which was subsequently supported by no less than Roger Morris.

Melangyna lasiophthalma

I failed to net it, or any other diptera or hymenoptera for that matter, though this bug hit the threads ..

Slightly out of focus Deraeocoris lutescens

In order to try and attract more stuff onto the lilac bush leaves, I made up a sugar-solution and flicked a few splashes on. It didn't really work. Until this morning when I realised that the bush was now covered in small groups of ants benefitting from the residues. I'm assuming Small Black Ant, but I'm not going to start squinting at them under a microscope.

There did seem to be a few more flies around in the garden today, though apart from the regulars there were no new hoverflies. I was pleased to get the following shots though, considering the flies were sat on top of the 6ft garden fence panels and I am somewhat less than 6ft. I'm glad the camera has a swivel view-screen.

Face Fly - Musca autumnalis

Other diptera was not identifiable ....

I think this is a 'Flesh Fly' - Sarcophaga sp.

I'm guessing one of the Anthomyiidae, maybe Hylema sp.

The first Harlequin Beetle of the year in the garden blundered into my net, and I managed to grab a shot literally just before it blundered off.

Also knocking around today were two or three Red Mason Bees, none of which would settle anywhere for a shot. I've got a few bits from today in pots to work on: a couple of carabids (another Amara type and something small and Bembedion-ish), a Nomada sp. bee and this sawfly ..

Athalia sp.

Birds-wise it has been very quiet, nothing new. And the moth trap is out tonight for the first time for a few days.

Stay safe. And sane!

This week, I have mostly been listening to .....

DOOKIE by Green Day - their third and greatest selling studio release from 1994. Sold out? Tailored for commerical success? Who cares - sounds great.

Today, I have mostly been listening to ..

Green Day (stuff from Dookie & American Idiot) and the awesome Songs About Fucking album by Big Black. Fucking great it was too, making a return drive to Sidcup along the two crappest motorways in rain much more bearable.