By The Wind Sailors.

Rather bored as its the middle of winter.  I'm spending Saturday afternoon wading through a store box full of staphylinidae (rove beetles) trying to put a name to them. Most are OK and straightforward to I'D but there are some really tricky species that can only be readily identified by extracting their genitalia.  The idea of taking the genital parts out of beetles makes a few of my non entomological friends (which is most of them bar one) chuckle at the thought.  If you did similar things with other animals I'm quite certain that you would be locked up, but somehow its perfectly normal when dealing with insects. I've also no new photographs to share but thought of a photograph taken this summer of a rather strange organism Veiella veiella, commonly known as the By The Wind Sailor.  A free floating Hydrozoan similar to the better known Portuguese man o' war.  There were plenty of these on a north Atlantic beach this August washed up in their thousands.  I didn't photograph them on the beach as it was rather windy and photographic equipment and sand don't mix very well.   A strange organism about 50 mm in length.  The photographed specimen, like most on the beach were a little past their best and a little desiccated.  

By The Wind Sailor - Benone, County Derry Northern Ireland. August 2014 

Too Busy to Blog

Apologies for lack of blog over the last couple of months, I've been rather busy at work. I'm in the process of changing career, moving away from teaching, my school is closing and I just have to see the current year 11 through to their GCSE's,  and moving onto a job that I should have pursued earlier in my life, namely a career that involves my true love of the natural world. I've also not blogged as I have hundreds of beetles to I'd from my son's summer of fieldwork on Bredon Hill.  He has cleared off back to University and left me with quite a lot to look at. He's gone back to undertake a 4 year PhD eventually aiming to call himself a plant molecular biologist.   I've currently listed over two hundred beetle records and still have many more to do.  I may even start on the hymenoptera during the Christmas holidays.  Anyway a photograph of my little place of work AKA the spare room, all beetles and books, heaven.  

Dead Tree

If you want to get me excited give me a dead or moribund tree,  it's beetle heaven.  A rare photograph of a grey haired man inspecting a flight interception trap placed by an old dead Oak in pasture woodland Bredon Hill Worcestershire.  Highlight of this trap was the beetle Prionychus ater and a couple of cuckoo-wasps Chrysis angustula.  These traps if positioned correctly spring a few nice surprises often beetles you wouldn't find by normal collecting methods. Didn't quite realise my hair was so thin until I saw this photograph. 

Inspecting a flight interception trap placed by a fissure in an old dead Oak tree. 

A Sawfly pretending to be a Bat.

Pine Sawfly - Sherwood Pines, August 2014.  (Size approximately 6mm)

A recent find up at Sherwood Pines Centre Parcs was this beautiful looking Sawfly.  Yet again I have my son to thank who was out out on an EMEC ecological survey of their ponds.  However, he found this little beast lying dead on a car bonnet.  Into a pot and home for me to stick a pin through and take a look at a later date. It turns out to be a male of the Pine Sawfly of genus Diprion,  its ethier Diprion pini or the very similar D.similis. Trying to key these little suckers to species level is in my mind really difficult given the complexity of the RES handbooks on this subject.   Neither species are encountered all that frequently NBN gateway gives only a handful of records for both species, which is surprising given the number of pine plantations there are scattered around the country.  I can't help it but it reminds me of a long eared Bat. What do you think?
  

Three Crickets in a Day.

A recent trip to Bredon Hill Worcestershire with my son, who was assessing the invertebrates found in and around different compartments of the hillside provided a good couple of days insect watching.  Highlight for me was 3 species of cricket in one day,  Speckled Bush,  Dark and Roesel's.   Speckled bush was not very obliging for the camera, it wouldn't sit still but the other two were game for a picture. Quite an impressive collection of insects and getting a little commoner in these days of slightly warmer summers.  Can't ever remember seeing these as a lad in the sixties and seventies.  Iv'e even seen them in Nottinghamshire this year,  my son capturing a speckled bush cricket on Sneinton Market right in the middle of urban sprawl.    

Speckled Bush Cricket, Bredon Hill,  7th August 2014 

Roesel's Bush Cricket Bredon Hill Worcestershire 7th August 2014 

Dark Bush Cricket, Bredon Hill Worcestershire, 7th August 2014 

Is this the most Striking Caterpillar in the UK?

Apparently the Sycamore moth is quite common in the UK.  However until last week I had never seen this caterpillar before.  Didn't quite look like it should be wandering across a road in Worcestershire. 

Sycamore Moth Caterpillar 

The allure of Fennel

If you like your insects then Fennel is most definitely the plant to grow.  I have a couple of plants in my small garden and both have reached about 8ft in height this year.   Not a problem until you want to photograph what's attracted to them, you end up pointing your camera to the sky, which in my opinion leads to awkward harsh light and a not too pleasing effect. Still I show a couple of real gems that have alighted this summer, a hornet, Vespa crabro, and the wasp/hornet mimic hoverfly Volucella inanis. I also get the whopping beast Volucella zonaria, in my opinion one of the UK's most spectacular flies.  Pictures aren't up to much bit a couple of insects on the northern edge of their british distribution ain't too bad. 

Hornet - Carlton Nottinghamshire, 01/08/2014

Big Hover', Volucella inanis. Carlton Notts 01/08/2014