Another Surprise Finch

Been a busy couple of days, up and down ladders and stairs painting the hallway and landing. Today I did manage to spend some time in the garden though. Late this morning as I sat out on a quick coffee break I nearly spluttered it all over the place as a Greenfinch briefly landed on the fence and then flew off. Yes, a Greenfinch! No camera to hand, and seemed highly unlikely I'd see it again. C'est la vie. Back inside for another few hours of soul-drenching hard graft delightful DIY and I was done for the day. Cameras ready and I grabbed a net. It was mid-afternoon and the sun was beating down by that point. I was being given the complete run around by at least three individual Merodon equestris that refused to settle for a shot and all evaded the net. And then I heard not one, but it sounded like a family party of Greenfinches. I couldn't see them as I got ready with the camera, and then two shot out of the embankment scrub and disappeared. But I could still hear one wheezing and trilling a bit. You may need to turn the volume up and ignore the wind/motoway noise .....

Eventually I could see a fat motionless silhouetted blob in the twiggery, and managed to get a poor shot that I've had to lighten to reveal the glorious green and yellow blob.

Otherwise it seemed that there was more activity than in recent days, though not much was settling. Perhaps the biggest insect surprise came when I nipped back into the kitchen to make another coffee and noticed that a fly buzzing around the window was not your average housefly ...

Tachina fera - a first for the house/garden

Another first for the garden was this, although it is only a sp. for now ...

Altica sp. - almost certainly lythri, but ....

And a couple of firsts for the year ...

Episyrphus balteatus

Green-veined White

Also some good larval news, or at least I am pretty sure that this is what it is.

Early instar Orange-tip on Cuckooflower seed pod

Less good news for one larva. I idly pointed the camera at a Blackbird and when looking at the image noted something hanging off the edge of its beak ..

Chrysalis

I had a couple of hours walking around the square today, mainly looking for fungi and leaf-mines. Found a few bits, nothing too exciting, but this butterfly chrysalis was worth pointing the camera at.

Think this is a Green-veined White - wonder if it will survive hanging there for a few months.

Yet more random stuff

The garden traps are still inactive, so yet again I was out dipping into everything else. Yesterday evening I had a very relaxing 2 hour walk along a disused railway line near to Cosby, which runs parallel to the M1. Despite the traffic noise in the background, it was actually quite peaceful with plenty of birdsong and, amazingly, not a single other person during the time I was there. I had fully expected a flurry of post-dinner dog-walkers. Something was singing from every stretch of shrubbery, including four Blackcaps, a Whitethroat, a Chiffchaff and a skulking Garden Warbler. Quite a few Adela reaumurella and Parornix angelicella flying, but with the conditions being a bit overcast there was not a lot of activity. Plenty of stuff picked out though as I ambled along, with Craneflies being most prominent for some reason .....

Tipula vernalis

Tipula varipennis

Tipula fascipennis - female

Tipula fascipennis - male

Tipula fascipennis - pair in cop

There were also a lot of Limonia phragmitidis about but I failed to get a decent shot. Very few beetles and bugs noted, but I did find a distinctive small one - Anaspis maculata - which escaped somewhere in the house before I could get a photo. Otherwise I found these ..

Cantharis nigricans

Agriotes sputator - many thanks to Mark Telfer

You'll have to trust me on this one, but the following shot is 100% genuine - no coaxing of the subjects to sit where I wanted them. I just went over to check a clump of White Campion and found these two sat side by side on the same flower.

Orange-tip (female) and Green-veined White

I've taken to looking at and under fallen rotting logs whilst out on these forays just lately, and this walk proved unexpectedly productive. I found this underneath one - a very common species to light but the first time I have seen the larva ..

Dark Arches

Meanwhile I found this growing on the end of another log ..

Pale Stagshorn??

Here's some random stuff to close the post.

Psila fimetaria

Hairy Snail

Aceria macrorhynchus - gall mite on Sycamore

Hawthorn Shieldbug

?? Which Spider ??

GVW

This evening I had to attend a meeting at the local school about a residential school trip for Josh next year. All very exciting. Except that this was whilst everyone else was over at Rutland Water happily filling their boots with the first Glossy Ibis for VC55. C'est la vie - it may be there tomorrow, and if not I'm damned sure there will be another before long. In fact it will probably be breeding here within the decade ...

Whilst pottering about in the garden after the meeting, I found this Green-veined White roosting on the lilac bush.

I also found yet another Lackey larva randomly wandering around the garden. All the ones I've found have been moved to the Japonica bush on the front, so I reckon there have been at least 10 individuals over the last few days. Not sure what they are doing - seems too early in the year for them to be full fed and looking to pupate but with the ridiculous April weather they may well be doing just that.

On a sadder note, I found this perfect small cup nest lying on the front garden. No sign of any eggs or shells, I reckon it must have blown out of a tree or bush during the strong winds earlier in the week. It has a mossy outer, and the cup is lined with some really soft stuff that looks like cavity wall insulation to me. Only c4 inches in diameter, a couple of inches deep and it weighs nothing. No idea what species, maybe something like Chaffinch?