Not Much

Haven't posted here for a while - mainly as I've had barely anything to post about. Cold, windy, busy etc. Moth trap hasn't been out since 5th March. Over the Easter weekend we went down to Devon where I fared a little better with new things, mainly lichens, but it was still very quiet as far as flying inverts go. I'll post a load of lichen stuff another day, but here's a few random shots.

Bracken Map - a common fungus on dead Bracken stems

Forked Veilwort - a liverwort

Opposite-leaved Golden Saxifrage

A nice shot of the arse-end of a Coal Tit - it just wouldn't face the camera

Montagu's Stellate Barnacle

Black-footed Limpet

And a common maritime lichen, Collemopsidium sublitorale on Montagu's Stellate Barnacle

And while I think about it, found a few of these lizards around the hotel grounds during a business trip to Turkey earlier in March - I think it's Lebanon Lizard (Phoenicolacerta laevis)

Retro Rockpooling + More Bugs

I bought some books at the Birdfair on Friday: the new macro moth guide by Sean Clancy, the Collins Fungi guide, the Beetles Checklist by Duff and one of the very generalised Collins guides - this one:

I know that these generalised guides are sometimes a bit limited and are often berated by proper naturalists, but after thumbing through a few times this is my new current favourite book (ie the one I tend to pick up and idly flick through at some point during the day rather than having a need to check something). The photos throughout are brilliant, and it does exactly what I wanted - highlights the commonest coastal wildlife across many different groups. I decided to check out a few photos from previous visits to the beach and suchlike, and managed to quickly identify four new species including these two grainy blown-up extracts from other shots:

Montagu's Stellate Barnacle

Snakelocks Anemone

Looking forward to visting beaches and rockpools sometime soon.

Meanwhile, more bugs. The first two are from a quick walk down the lane yesterday afternoon, the latter two are from the garden MV last night.

Common Froghopper - very variable

Dock Bug - early instar nymph

Allygus modestus - makes the pair for the garden.

Note the dark black line on the vertex (like a pencil moustache).

Field Damsel Bug - on natural eggbox habitat

Also lots of these flies around at the moment ...

Eriothrix rufomaculata