Studies of a Wren

Wren, RSPB Nene Washes, 23.7.05
Nikon Coolpix 880 through Kowa TSN-821 + 32xW LER

Off to Spain again

I'm just back from guiding a couple of excellent Company of Whales trips across Biscay on the Pride of Bilbao (13-16.7.05 and 16-19.7.05). Here are a few tasters of the goodies which were on offer on the hill above Santurtzi, the port at Bilbao, but I'll post a fuller report in a couple of days when I am back at my computer. Meantime check out the Company of Whales website (see links) and enjoy the few snaps of these birds and butterflies. Thanks very much to Dawn Russell for co-guiding on the first trip and all our wonderful clients for being such great company!

Large Chequered Skipper (digiscoped), 15.7.05


Holly Blue, 15.7.05

Fan-tailed Warbler (digiscoped), 18.7.05

Marbled White, 18.7.05

Serin (digiscoped), 18.7.05

Bath White, 18.7.05

Clouded Yellow, 18.7.05
All Nikon Coolpix 880 (digiscoped images were through Kowa TSN-821 + 32xW LER)

Playing Marbles

On Saturday (9.7.05), I went up to Barnack Hills and Holes. There were hundreds and hundreds of Marbled Whites there, more than I have ever seen before in total! I am off to Biscay tomorrow, so haven't time to post even some the best of the photos I took, but here is a taster (there will be more next week)
Nikon Coolpix 4500

Bug with paddles

Here is another groovy garden insect. It is a bug called Heterotoma merioptera with amazing paddles for antennae, like semaphore flags! It was hanging out on our big daisies. Interestingly, Brian the Natural also saw one at about the same time – it's obviously their season...
Nikon Coolpix 4500

Clearly a cracker!

My friend Mr Pink (aka Kevin DuRose) has an irresistible stench in his pocket. Occasionally, he whips it out to good effect. On Sunday (10.7.05), he did just that in our garden, using the 'myo' pheromone, one of a batch he has for different clearwing moths. The target was this beauty, a Red-belted Clearwing, lover of apple trees (of which we have a few). Please click the first one for a bigger version.
Nikon Coolpix 4500

Get those jaws

Lacewing larva, Norfolk, 23.6.05
Nikon Coolpix 4500

I'm your privet dancer

I'm not really into moths, but I know a whopper when I see one! I think the last Privet Hawkmoth I saw was a caterpillar on our pirvet hedge when I was a kid (back in the day!). So I was somewhat taken aback when I saw this adult, as I was heading home from the bikesheds (not that I spend most of my working day in the bikesheds), on the wall of our office at Bretton, Peterborough (6.7.05). What a simply humungous moth!
All Nikon Coolpix 4500

Bedford Purlieus crawlies

Some insects and a spider at Bedford Purlieus, 3.7.05.

Small White

Large Skipper (female)

Comma

The longhorn beetle Strangalia (Rutpela) maculata

White Admiral

The most elongate spider in the world on grass
Small solitary bee
All Nikon Coolpix 4500
Sleep in peace in your Paradise for ever.

Three Wise Monkeys

Bearded Tit

One of at least ten juvenile Bearded Tits hanging round the freshmartsh fringe at Titchwell, Norfolk on 23.6.05.

Skin-crawling action

It is a classic Weedon's World of Nature scenario. There is Weedon pottering around the garden admiring the beauteous bounty of Nature in blooming July glory. He naturally has a quick look at his favourite, ever-plumper Cinnabar moth caterpillars, each happy one of which is busy devouring a Ragwort to an unrecognisable mess. But one does not look too happy at all, in fact it is twtchy, lifting its head and swinging round. Aha, thinks Weedon after a closer look, it is fidgeting because a little aphid has accidentally landed on its back.
But a closer look reveals that the landing was no accident, and this is no innocent aphid. The tiny creature which won't go away is a teensy ichneumon and its business is egg-laying. And it won't leave until it has pierced the caterpillar's skin many times to lay its eggs, which will hatch within the moth larva and eat it alive from the inside.
It makes your skin crawl! Further inspection of another clump of Ragwort found two more of these microdevils pursuing their natural aim of taking advantage of the fat grazers. Now I must go and itch – enjoy the shots:

Getting ready for action, caterpillar flailing hopelessly.

Close-up of the parasite.

Then the ovipositor is injected under the skin.

Closer for the ghoulish...
Nikon Coolpix 4500.

Reed Warbler

When the management team have drained the water from your local nature reserve (Star Pit, Peterborough) and the only birds are a sorry collection of juvenile Blac-backed Gulls, it's time to do something else. So I ploughed into the melilot (of which there is a hellish lot) and tried to take snaps of a singing Reed Warbler (2.7.05).

The song-in-the-reeds shot.

Pretending it is a Bittern!




Nikon Coolpix 880, Kowa TSN-821 + 32xW LER

Things livened up as I was leaving as Kevin Du Rose arrived with his clearwing pheromones (we had great Six-belted Clearwing action)– but he will tell the tale on his website (see links)

Babyface the lizard

There is something so reptilian about Green Woodpeckers, particularly the scaley baby ones. This bird was begging at Southey Woods.
Nikon Coolpix 880, Kowa TSN-821 + 32xW LER

Another garden tick

Finally, Common Blue Damselfy has officially been accepted onto the Weedonian garden list (Peterborough, Cmabs, 30.6.05), with three of them (a male and two females) hanging about in some of the long grass I've allowed to grow. Devils to get in focus (the camera ignores such flimsy foreground flippancy and tries instead to look beyond), these are the best pix I could get:


Male.

Female (the other one had a rather pinky thorax).
Nikon Coolpix 4500

Studies of a solitary bee

Solitary bee, our Peterborough garden, 30.6.05
I see you, Babee, shaking that ass...
Nikon Coolpix 4500