Mason Wasp Ancistrocerus nigricornis (#938)

I snapped this mason wasp exploring a hole in the limestone wall. These wasps cache caterpillars in holes in wood or masonry for their caterpillars to eat once their eggs hatch. Usually several cells are created with earth walls between each compartment, each cell containing an egg and food for the growing wasp larva. There are several species of very similar wasps, but I believe this one is Ancistrocerus nigricornis, which is one of the commoner ones, often using bug hotels.

Mealy Plum Aphid (Hyalopterus pruni)

It seems like 2023 is a bumper year for aphids. Nearly all the trees and bushes in the garden are covered in aphids and sticky with honeydew. This time the plum tree is heavily infested with Mealy Plum Aphids; another new species for the list as I didn’t record these before. Hopefully it will also be a bumper year for things that preys on aphids too, like ladybirds. The blue tits from our nest box are trying, but struggling, to keep on top of the problem.

#933 Mealy Plum Aphid (Hyalopterus pruni)

First Big Moth Catch of the Year

A lot of moths today, 95 individuals of 35 species, including lots of waves, pugs, grass moths and other micros to sort out (which took me a while). Amongst it all, three new species taking my garden count to 936.

#613 Barred Yellow (Cidaria fulvata)

#81 Scarlet Tiger (Callimorpha dominula)

#757 Foxglove Pug (Eupithecia pulchellata)

#762 Freyer's Pug (Eupithecia intricata)

#782 Green Pug (Pasiphila rectangulata)

#934 Dwarf Cream Wave (Idaea fuscovenosa)

#935 Ringed China-mark (Parapoynx stratiotata)

#936 Parachronistis albiceps

Click Beetle, Melanotus castanipes/villosus (#937)

I found this beetle when checking the moth trap this morning, under the trap actually, so I doubt it was attracted to light. It’s a click beetle, doing its thing of pinging itself up in the air with a load click when stressed. This all-black one is I think Melanotus castanipes or the very similar M. villosus. It’s a first for the garden and my second click beetle species.

Hawthorn Shield Bug

My first Shield Bug of the year flew in and landed on the window. Hawthorn Shieldbug, with its pointy shoulders, is a colourful and common bug in deciduous trees. They over-winter as adults and appear each Spring with a new generation appearing in August/September. I usually see a few each summer.

#427 Hawthorn Shield Bug (Acanthosoma haemorrhoidale)

Garden Lady's Mantle (Alchemilla mollis)

This is another pseudo-wild flower that’s found its way to the garden. Non-native, but a common escaped garden plant, Garden Lady's Mantle is a perennial plant with yellow flowers. This one sprung up at the edge of my lawn somehow.

#931 Garden Lady's Mantle (Alchemilla mollis)

Light and Dark Arches

Dark Arches is one of the commonest moths in the moth trap during the summer, but its light-coloured relative is less common and its believed less attracted to light. As such, this Light Arches moth, with its very fine mohawk, was a new garden species (#930). Both are grassland species, their caterpillars living on grass stems and roots.

#930 Light Arches (Apamea lithoxylaea)

#247 Dark Arches (Apamea monoglypha)

Blood-vein & Buff Tip

Blood-vein (Timandra comae, #929) was a new species for the list; a pretty moth with a red line and pink border to the wing, its larval food-plants are docks & sorrel. Buff-tip (Phalera bucephala) is a regular summertime looking like a snapped-off birch twig. Narrow-winged Grey (Eudonia angustea) is normally an autumn flier, but a few, like this one, emerge earlier. Small Magpie moth (Anania hortulata) is a common moth in June/July too, especially around nettles.

#929 Blood-vein (Timandra comae)

#612 Buff Tip (Phalera bucephala)

#219 Small Magpie Moth (Anania hortulata)

#694 Narrow-winged Grey (Eudonia angustea)

Eyed Hawk-moth (Smerinthus ocellata)

A beautiful hawk moth in the trap this morning; my first this year. This one is an Eyed Hawk-moth, which is not a species I’ve caught before in the moth-trap. My previous garden record was one that was caught, and mostly shredded, by the cat back in 2020. This moth is not especially rare, though it’s not the commonest hawk moth here. Its caterpillars are found in sallows, apple and crab apple trees.

Sabre Wasp - Rhyssa persuasoria (#928)

This large and rather scary parasitic wasp trapped itself in the greenhouse. At 40 mm long, excluding an ovipositor longer even than the body, it’s an impressive bug and UK’s biggest parasitic wasp. The females (like this one) detect beetle larvae deep in dead wood, and their ovipositor can pass through the wood to lay eggs in or near the grub. The wasp larvae then eats the beetle larva. This species is normally found in woodland with dead logs, so it is a good find for my garden which is not very near a wooded area.

Peppered Moth (Biston betularia)

Another cold night, another lean morning in the moth trap. Only 9 moths of 8 different species, compared with 24 moths of 15 species on the same date last year (3 June). This Peppered Moth was not something I catch that often. The species has a pale form (like this), one with darker grey markings and one that is nearly black. In polluted areas where the trees are blackened by soot, etc, the darker forms predominate - but no issues with air quality here, just currently with night-time air temperature.

Woolly beech aphid (Phyllaphis fagi)

A large beech tree shades a chunk of the garden, plus it is being used as a roost for woodpigeons which crap all over the patio (just how much does a single pigeon produce in a day!?). Anyhow, cutting some low hanging branches in the hope the pigeons find a new roost site, they were all sticky and the under-sides of the leaves covered in clusters of fluffy white insects. These are Woolly Beech Aphids (Phyllaphis fagi, #927), which secrete copious honeydew. I didn’t notice them previous years, or that the tree was buzzing with insects attracted by the honeydew.

#927 Woolly beech aphid Phyllaphis fagi

Pale Tussock

Not much flying last night too, as the nights remain cold. This Pale Tussock was the most interesting catch; a very fine moth with very freaky looking caterpillars later in the year.

#740 Pale Tussock (Calliteara pudibunda)

Common Nettle Aphid (Microlophium carnosum, #925)

Not terribly exciting, but a new aphid species for the garden that I must have overlooked previously. I found these green-coloured Common Nettle Aphids while doing some gardening.

#925 Common Nettle Aphid (Microlophium carnosum )

Beech Tree Seedling

It took me an effort to work out what this tiny seedling that popped up among the bluebell plants was. It’s a baby Beech Tree (Fagus sylvatica). The first pair of leaves really doesn’t look like anything to do with a beech tree, but if you look closer at the young leaves forming in the middle, those do. The plant didn’t make it: now gone, presumably eaten by something.

A Fly-Eat-Fly World

Adult Yellow Dung Flies son’t eat dung, they just lay their eggs there, where their larva eat other insect larvae. The adult too are carnivorous. This yellow-coloured, male dung fly was eating a smaller fly it had caught.

#127 Yellow Dung Fly (Scathophaga stercoraria)

Cockchafers & Moths

It’s always nice to catch cockchafer beetles; two in the moth trap this morning. Not a big catch of moths again, but several species caught for the fist time this year, as the season moves on.

#526 Common Cockchafer (Melolontha melolontha)

#611 Grey Dagger (Acronicta psi)

#659 Shuttle-shaped Dart (Agrotis puta)

#673 Iron Prominent (Notodonta dromedarius)

#676 Coronet (Craniophora ligustri)

#749 Mottled Pug (Eupithecia exiguata)

Raspberry Yellow Rust (Phragmidium rubi-idaei)

The yellow/orange spots on many of the lower leaves of my raspberry plants are from a fungus called Raspberry Yellow Rust (species #924). This is not something I’ve seen before in the garden, but it thrives in wet conditions, as we have had for most of this Spring. The pustules appear on the leaves in the spring and slowly darken over the summer. Apparently it’s harmless and won’t reduce the raspberry crop, so that’s good news.

#924 Raspberry Yellow Rust (Phragmidium rubi-idaei)

Mid-May Moths

A few more moths this weekend, but not yet a big catch. Puss Moth is always a welcome visitor, and this is only my second Silver Cloud, which is a local specialty only really found along the Severn Valley in UK, for some reason. Female Muslin Moths are white and often found flying in the daytime, while the males and dark like this one and strictly nocturnal. Meanwhile the last moth is a rather beaten-up looking Clouded-bordered Brindle (Apamea crenata), actually my first of this springtime species.

#746 Puss Moth (Cerura vinula)

#855 Silver Cloud (Egira conspicillaris)

#745 Muslin Moth (Diaphora mendica)

#923 Clouded-bordered Brindle (Apamea crenata)

Hazelnut Weevil (Curculio nucum, #922)

We found these larvae in hazel nuts from last autumn. The weevils lay their eggs in the growing nut, then normally after a few weeks when they have eaten the nut kernel the larvae burrow out (see the exit hole in the nut shell), and relocate to the ground beneath the tree where they remain as pupae until the next spring when they emerge as beetles. In several cases there were live larvae in this batch of dried out nuts; their normal lifecycle presumably interrupted by our harvesting & storing the nuts.

#922 Hazelnut Weevil (Curculio nucum)