Garden Visitors

Tags

Brown Hawker dragonfly, butterfly, cuckoo bee, dragonflies, Field vole, Flesh Fly, flies, garden, ichneumon wasp, Large Yellow Underwing moth, micro moths, moths, Small Tortoiseshell butterfly, small white butterfly, Southern Hawker dragonfly, Tachina fera fly, wildlife

I will continue to post last year’s photos while this winter weather continues.  I am away from home for a good part of the day; certainly the part of the day with the best light for taking pictures.  We haven’t been out anywhere recently either, so nothing much to show or tell you.

Rear end of a vole. I think this may be a Field Vole (Microtus agrestis) rather than a Bank Vole (Clethrionomys glareolus).

Front end of a vole.

This vole was hiding behind the wheel of the hose-pipe cart.  In fact, the shots were taken just a couple of weeks ago but I was unable to add them to the other posts I’ve published this year.  Field Voles are aggressive and noisy rodents and like to live in damp and tussocky grass.  Exactly!  Our garden is full of that at the moment.

Bees on Chive flowers

I let most of my herbs flower as I prefer to see the insects and flowers to having perfect tasting herbs.

I believe this is a Cuckoo Bee (Psithyrus vestalis) on Chives.

A micro moth I found in grass. I haven’t yet discovered what it is called.

Another micro moth seen on a wall. I apologise for the shot being out of focus.

A Brown Hawker dragonfly. This is the only photo I managed to get of it and it blends in so well with the dead leaf it was perching on. This is our only Hawker with amber wings and has prominent yellow stripes on its thorax. These can just be seen above the wings. I believe this is a female.

Tachina fera on Marjoram.  The larvae of these flies are parasites of saw flies and other caterpillars.

Small Tortoiseshell butterfly (Aglais urticae) on Marjoram

Small Tortoiseshell butterfly on Marjoram.

Small Tortoiseshell butterfly on Marjoram.

 

This is an Ichneumon wasp (possibly Amblyteles armatorius but I have my doubts about this ID). It is on Bronze Fennel.

Ichneumon Wasp and Flesh-fly (Sarcophaga carnaria) on Bronze Fennel.

Unknown moth.  Angle Shades moths (Phlogophora meticulosa) fold their wings like this but I am not sure that they are this dark in colour.

A rather chewed Small White butterfly (Pieris rapae).

Large Yellow Underwing moth (Noctua pronuba)

Southern Hawker dragonfly (Aeshna cyanea) – female.

Best wishes to you all!

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

A Suffolk Garden in July – Insects Part 1

Tags

azure damselfly, blackfly aphid, blue-tailed damselfly, brown hawker, burnet moth, buttercup, comma butterfly, Essex skipper, feverfew, greenbottle, helicopter, ichneumon wasp, insects, July, meadow brown butterfly, migrant hawker, oedemea nobilis, peacock butterfly, Red Lily Beetle grub, rhagonycha fulva, Ringlet butterfly, robber fly' bindweed, ruddy darter, sawfly, small skipper, Small Tortoiseshell, small wolf spider, speckled wood butterfly, spotted crane fly, Suffolk, white butterfly

A Speckled Wood butterfly

I realise that we are now a week into August but better late than never.  There were so many different insects about last month that I will have to make more than one post to cover them.  I have also included some photos of insects that I saw during June most of which were still about in July.  I will list the insects in the order in which I saw them or was able to photograph them.  I am not including the dragonfly, damselfly and butterfly photos that I have already posted but I may include different photos of the same type of insect.

The Speckled Wood shown above had a little bit of its wing missing but was quite a bright, new-looking insect.  The next photo is of something none of us want in our gardens.

A Red Lily Beetle grub – yeuch!

These nasties chomp their way through lilies and fritillaries and do it very quickly too.  They cover themselves in their own excrement.

A male Oedemera nobilis – only the males have the swollen hind-legs. They feed on pollen and this one is eyeing up his next meal

The next two photos are of the same unidentified insect and the photos aren’t that clear either.   Ichneumon wasp or sawfly?

Note the extremely long ovipositor!

A Small Wolf Spider carrying its eggs in a silk ball

I realise that spiders aren’t insects but I’m still including this one here nevertheless.  Because these spiders do not make webs and live a nomadic life, the female has to carry her eggs around with her.  Some wolf spiders even carry their spiderlings about with them too.  When the spiderlings are due to hatch, the female spins a large ‘nursery web’ in the vegetation and puts the egg sac there.  Wolf spiders run down their prey like their namesakes.

Greenbottle

Azure Damselfly

Azure Damselfly

Here are some more little insects that gardeners could do without.  This photo also shows how good feverfew is at attracting them.

Blackfly aphids on Feverfew

Spotted Cranefly

Unidentified insect (sawfly?) on a buttercup

Tortoiseshell butterfly sipping nectar

A Meadow Brown butterfly on a very windy day

A Ringlet butterfly on another windy day

A Ruddy Darter dragonfly

Rhagonycha fulva I thought at first that this was a Cardinal Beetle but they have different antennae and are much redder.

A Burnet Moth caught in a spider’s web

A Blue-tailed Damselfly

An unidentified fly (robber fly?) on a bindweed flower

A military helicopter It looks like an insect!

Another photo of a Ruddy darter

A Migrant Hawker dragonfly

 

Peacock butterfly on lobelia

Small or Essex Skipper on Common Bird’s-foot-trefoil

The Small and the Essex Skipper butterflies are very similar.  The difference is that the Essex Skipper is greyer underneath and its antennal tip is black underneath.  I don’t think I will ever be able to tell the difference.

Comma butterfly

Comma butterfly

Spot the dragonfly! I think this is a Brown Hawker

An unidentified white Butterfly. I am having a lot of trouble identifying the white buttterflies

There will be more insects in the next post.