Honeysuckle Sawfly - Zaraea lonicerae

Honeysuckle Sawfly Carlton, Notts 21st May 2013

 I've had these absolute beauties in the garden for two years now.  They hang around near to my two honeysuckle but as yet I've not seen one on the plant.  However A flick through the AIDGAP key to the genera of British Sawflies quickly sent me to the family Cimbicidae and the genera of either Abia or Zaraea, the brown yellow streak on the wings gives the genus away.  However the key only runs through to genus and I have no further keys to take me to species. However, a description of Abia suggests rare species feeding on Scabious, a plant not in my patch whilst our two species of Zaraea both feed on Honeysuckle.  A quick internet trawl and I'm settling on Zaraea lonicerae.  NBN gateway only shows a few squares marked in down south for current distribution.  Perhaps its new to Nottinghamshire.  Whatever the reason for it being here I'll make sure I find the larvae on my honeysuckle later in the season.  Hope you enjoy the pictures as much as I enjoy the fly (I should really say primitive wasp). 

Honeysuckle sawfly - Carlton Notts 21st May 2013

PS - I'm no expert on sawflies so if I've made a howler in i.d. then please let me know. And finally, pictures were taken early evening it was also a little dull, I don't use flash so had to increase ISO to 500 to get working light, hence not tip top sharp image. Still you get the picture it's a beautiful thing.

Sawfly Carlton Notts Garden 21st May 2013 - resting on Flag Iris. 

Couple of Fresh-uns

Small Copper Lycaena phlaeas May 19th 2013 

A couple of nice freshly emerged butterflies in the garden in the last couple of days.  Small Copper and tonight on my return from work a lovely chocolate brown Speckled wood.  Small Copper is a bit unusual in my suburban garden but Speckled wood makes a daily appearance with several noted on some days.  Not bad to say that the garden is about 35ft in length by 20ft width. It is however one of the few gardens locally with plenty of native flower species in. I have even sacrificed the lawn for Dog Daisies, Self heal, Violets, red campion and Buttercups.  Still it was buzzing with fly life this Sunday.  The following butterflies have also made an appearnace so far this spring, Brimstone, Orange Tip, Small and Large White, Green Veined White, Comma, Peacock as well as Holly Blue. Alas no Small Tortoiseshell.
  

Speckled Wood Parage aegeria Carlton Notts 20th May 2013 

Trent Valley Reed Beetles - Donacia simplex, vulgaris and clavipes.

Donacia simplex on Burr Reed Holme Pierrepont Notts 19th May 2013. 

 Twenty one species of reed beetle are known to occur in the UK, of which 15 occur in the genera Donacia. Of these I have found three species during my ramblings along the Trent Valley, namely Donacia simplex, D. vulgaris and D. clavipes. They are medium sized metallic coloured beetles, usually found near water and all associated with  water plants.  The most common in Nottinghamshire and along the River Trent is D. simplex.  From mid-May through to end of June they can readily be seen feeding mating and just hanging around on Burr Reed.  Good spots to find them are the Gravel pits around Holme Pierrepont, along the Banks of the River itself above Stoke Lock whilst good populations exist at Colwick country park where they are pretty common along the old course of the Trent, known locally as Colwick loop.  A similar species D. vulgaris can also be found in the same spots, very similar to simplex it can be most easily distinguished by the violet to blue streak, one on both elytra (the hard modified protective wing case).  This species like simplex uses Burr reed as the larval food plant.  The only other species I have encountered was the nationally scarce reed beetle D. clavipes,  I found one of these chaps at Skylarks nature reserve.  This beetle feeds on Phragmites australis, "common reed" plentiful at the skylarks site.  However further searches have so far proved fruitless.

I also found quite a pretty fly whilst out, the Pond Olive, thought I had a nice photo, but the specimen I photographed was damaged it should have two whip like tails projecting form its rear end.  They appear to be missing. Whether it lost these on emergence or lost them to attempted predation I'll never know. Still it's a curious fly and makes a good study. 

Pond Olive "Cloeon dipterum" May 19th Home Pierrpont Notts. 

Another Jumping spider on my wall, "Siticus pubescens"

Jumping Spider, Siticus pubescens - Carlton wall 07/05/2013

After returning from work I popped out the back to take in my Mason Bee colony.  The males are still making life a little uncomfortable for the females to the point whre the females have moved on to an overflow set of bamboo tubes I bought from, of all places, Morrisons.  However once the males have died off I expect the females to move back onto my log especially as I will clear the debris from a few of the vacated holes.  It is also noticeable that I have several holes still blocked by mud. I'm not sure whether these are late to emerge are dead due to the harsh winter or contain parasitic wasps. I'll wait and see on this one.
  
Anyway enough of bees.  When looking at the bees my attention was drawn to the chap in the photograph. He had taken up position behind my bee log in a little gap between the wall and the log.  He seemed quite happy with a small shaft of sunlight illuminating him nicely.  A rush inside for the camera and what you see is the best of some rather average shots, I think that there was not enough natural light, but it still gives a pleasing effect, give the picture a double click and you can see it a little more clearly. 

Siticus pubescens is a rather nice hairy jumping spider, slightly larger than my other wall dweller Salticus scenicus. Described as common and living on walls and fence posts. I have them on both wall and fence in my suburban  garden.  Still haven't got the extension tubes, but have spent a fair bit on 3 books on British spiders, an EBAY bargain!  

Bee's in Flight.

A beautiful day here in Nottinghamshire. My Red Mason bees were active from about 8.00am and built themselves up in to a right mating frenzy by about 10 O'clock.  This gave me a chance to try and photograph a few in flight.  In the past I've found macro-photography of moving insects all but impossible. However camera fully charged, shutter set for multiple shot standing on a chair so that I could get close to the hole they were investigating and then shoot away.  I upped the ISO to give me a bit more shutter speed and stayed focussed on one point hoping that the bees would actually fly into my focus point rather than me chase them around.  Hope you like the end result, I'm rather pleased for once. I've uploaded another couple of images on my flickr account, you can access this by clicking the link in the right hand column of this blog. 

Osmia bicornis Carlton Nottinghamshire 6th May 2013. 

This chap on my finger has got to be my favourite species of Bee, its not rare, it doesn't have anything fancy about other than its stunning colours.  Andrena haemorrhoa

Andrena haemorrhoa - Holme Pierrepont Nottinghamshire 6th May 2013

And finally, more Bees this time a couple of Mason Bees doing what comes naturally, it's either pushing the other one off or it's up to something else, I'll leave that one to you to work out. 

Osmia bicornis, Carlton Notts, 6th May 2013. 

Love Darts - Helix aspersa

Garden snails, Helix aspersa, don't need sex they're hermaphrodites, an organism with both male and female reproductive organs.  Although self fertilisation can occur they do, at least in my garden, like a bit of gamete swapping, in the form of sperm exchange. However snail courtship like most snail activities is a slow process taking several hours.  Preliminary to copulation snails shoot darts (scientific name gypsobelum) at each other.  These hard darts are stabbed into the partner prior to mating and are thought to contain hormones that increase the survivability of the sperm that the snail will subsequently pass to its partner. I attach a   photograph that clearly show the dart in the side of the right hand snail whilst it also shows the transfer of sperm between one snail and another.  Not a lot more to say really other than there's a lot of sex going off in the garden at the moment. End result, each snail produces about 80 large whitish eggs.

Dermestid Beetle, Megatoma undata

Megatoma undata - Shelford Notts 1st May 2013 

For those of you that follow this blog the name Trent Valley Beetles may be becoming something of a misnomer, with the majority of my articles talking about anything but beetles.  However a trip to one of my favourite patches along the Trent at Shelford led to me finding the Dermestid beetle Megatoma undata.  The start of the walk consisted of releasing two lambs who had stuck their heads through a wire mesh fence to feed on the longer grass on the other side.  My initial attempts were not helped by the lambs jumping even harder into the fence, it wasn't until they had settled that I could loosen the wire to free them. Anyway back to the beetle Megatoma is a widespread but quite local beetle throughout England. Running to about 10mm, although I've never seen one much bigger than about 5mm they are most commonly found behind peeling bark in the vicinity of spiders webs or old spider nests.  Here the larva are thought to feed on the insect remains left by the feasting spider.  In some publications it is said to be found sitting on old posts, which is where the beast in the photograph was photographed was found. Didn't see a lot else, couple of nice bees, Andrena haemorrhoea, Andrena cineraria and the tawny mining bee Andrena fulva, all three are beautiful in colour and a joy to see. I attach a photograph of A. fulva sunning on the same post as megatoma. 

Tawny Mining Bee - Shelford 1st May 2013.