November Hovers

November this year will be remembered for its very mild and dry weather. This meant that there was still a lot of insect activity in my garden, especially on the flowers of my Hedera colchica 'Paddy's pride' Ivy. This photograph was taken on 13/11/11 and shows a hoverfly from the Eupeodes group. I'm pretty sure the species is Eupeodes luniger as they can be found exceptionally early and late in the season, and is very common in south-east England.
The Ivy flowers were also attracting many wasps and several species of flies and really must go down as one of those must have plants for anyone interested in entomology.

Scarlet Tiger Moth

The photograph taken above in my garden on 19/05/11, shows a pair of Scarlet Tiger Callimorpha dominula Moths mating. What is so satisfying for me is the fact that I raised one of these from a Caterpillar through to a Pupa, which then hatched into this beautiful Moth on 18/05/11. I released the Moth in the late afternoon of the 19th and then literally within the hour found these two mating. I cannot prove that one of the Moths was mine, but knowing the strength of the pheromones that they give off, I'm pretty sure mine found a mate almost instantly.
I have found another pair mating today on 22/06/11.
I'm pretty sure that I now have a thriving colony of this species as I seem to have many of the larval foodplants. These include Common Comfrey, Hemp-agrimony, Common Nettle, Honeysuckle and Meadowsweet. I have noticed the local Great Tits often diving into the Comfrey searching for caterpillars.

Large Red Damselfly

The unseasonal warm weather we have been enjoying this spring, has led to the early emergence of many Dragonflies and Damselflies. The Large Red Damselfly, pictured above, is invariably the first species to emerge, and in my garden was seen on the 21st April. This compares with other years as follows:
2005 - 27th May.
2006 - 17th June.
2007 - Not recorded.
2008 - Not recorded.
2009 - 29th April.
2010 - 15th May.
2011 - 21st April.
The photograph above is probably of an immature male as the stripes on the side of the thorax (known as antehumeral stripes) appear to be yellow and the anal appendages at the tip of the abdomen appear to have claspers for mating. Males emerge slightly earlier than females and mature in about 12 days compared to 16 days for females.

The colour of the eyes are often an important identification feature of Dragonflies and Damselflies, and the photograph above clearly shows that ours are Red. Also, the legs are Black, which also confirms that this is a Large Red rather than a Small Red Damselfly.

On the 1st May, I took this photograph, which shows a mating pair around my pond. There were 4 Large Red Damselflies present, which is a record for my garden, and to observe two of them mating was also a first.

Early Mining Bees

I was thrilled to see this bee in my back garden, basking in the early morning sunshine on 12/03/11. This is a type of solitary mining bee and my first of the year. This bee is from the Genus Andrena, of which there are 67 species nationally.

It is extremely difficult to narrow this family of bees down to species level, but because of the date seen it could well be Andrena clarkella. The white hairs on the face indicate that this is a male. It is associated with sallow blossom and sometimes appears as early as mid-February.

They nest in the ground, and hence they are more commonly known as 'mining bees'. Although strictly solitary, females of many species of the Andrena group nest in dense aggregations and a few species have communal nest entrances.

This bee was observed basking in the early evening sunshine on my shed ivy on 27/03/11. Again extremely difficult to identify down to species level, but looking at other internet photographs, it could possibly be Andrena carantonica, which is a very common mining bee found between the end of march and mid July.

RSPB Garden Birdwatch 2011

Each year after participating in the RSPB Garden Birdwatch, I always like to do a comparison on the four main seed eating visitors. Of the four, I would say that the Goldfinch is the most frequent visitor with totals up to 15 sometimes recorded (only 6 during the birdwatch). This is certainly due in some part to the two Nyger seed feeders, and also the state of the weather. On damp days numbers increase quite substantially compared to dry days and it must be due to natural seed bearing sources remaining tightly shut under these conditions. The BBC Wildlife magazine pointed this fact out in reply to a question on Siskins visiting garden feeders in damp weather.

Unfortunately, there were no Greenfinches seen this year, and since 2004 they have become conspicuous by their absence. House Sparrow numbers are just about holding up as are Chaffinches (only 1 during the birdwatch) - normally 5 or 6 are seen.

The highlight of the birdwatch this year was when my wife Bron said there were several Starlings on a TV aerial in the distance waiting to come down to the garden for their usual suet treats. On closer inspection I could see that these Starlings had grown crests on the back of their heads and were in fact Waxwings. This is a first for us to actually see them from the kitchen window (all 32 of them), but sadly we cannot count them as technically they did not come down to the garden.

Here is the submitted list seen on Sunday 30/01/11 between 10:20 and 11:20:

Blackbird - 2, Blue Tit - 2, Chaffinch - 1, Collared Dove - 1, Dunnock - 1, Goldfinch - 6,

Great Tit - 1, House Sparrow - 6, Pied Wagtail - 2, Robin - 1, Song Thrush - 1,

Starling - 11, Wood Pigeon - 4.

13 Species, 39 Birds.

Garden Moth Review 2010

A new species for the garden in 2010 was the Pyrausta despicata, which was found in my Moth trap on 20/08/10. This is rather a plain micro moth, but it is unusual in as much as it is normally found on dry calcareous soils, cliffs and downs. Why it should turn up in my garden on clay soil is one of lifes great mysteries.

On with the review. For my 60th birthday on January 1st, my two children, Paul and Jenny gave me a wonderful 125W Robinson moth trap. This replaced my home made ‘Skinner’ type of trap and enabled me to increase my catch quite substantially.
New species recorded for 2010 only increased by 12 giving me a garden life list of 164. The year by year tally is shown below:

2005 Life list = 51.
2006 Life list = 81. New species = 30.
2007 Life list = 104. New species = 23.
2008 Life list = 125. New species = 21.
2009 Life list = 152. New species = 27.
2010 Life list = 164. New species = 12.

The number of species was down slightly at 75, but the number of individuals caught increased quite dramatically to 322. Below is a yearly breakdown of the number of species recorded and the number of individuals:

2005 Species = 51. Individuals = 99.
2006 Species = 50. Individuals = 142.
2007 Species = 53. Individuals = 161.
2008 Species = 68. Individuals = 178.
2009 Species = 79. Individuals = 229.
2010 Species = 75. Individuals = 322.

The list below shows my top 10 most abundant species for 2010 (actually 11 moths).
The biggest surprise is the Small Quaker at No.1 which increased from 8 in 2009 to a staggering 53 in 2010. This is quickly followed by another huge increase at No.3 for the Common Quaker, up from 3 in 2009 to 26 in 2010. I think this is partly due to the Robinson type trap and it will be interesting to see what happens in 2011.

1. Small Quaker Orthosia cruda = 53.
2. Heart & Dart Agrotis exclamationis = 34.
3. Common Quaker Orthosia cerasi = 26.
4. Dark Arches Apamea monoglypha = 15.
=5. Large Yellow Underwing Noctua pronuba = 12.
=5. Shuttle-shaped Dart Agrotis puta = 12.
7. Light Brown Apple Moth Epiphyas postvittana = 11.
8. Vine's Rustic Hoplodrina ambigua = 10.
=9. Common Rustic Mesapamea secalis = 8.
=9. Hebrew Character Orthosia gothica = 8.
=9. Lesser Yellow Underwing Noctua comes = 8.

Overall since I have started mothing in 2005, the Light Brown Apple Moth is the most abundant species found in the garden with a total of 110, followed by the Heart & Dart with 83.

Leaving the garden for a moment, my life list now stands at 227.

Anyone seen the sea?

The photograph above was taken on 18/12/10 in my back garden, and shows a Black-headed Gull Larus ridibundus. This seems quite unusual to find a gull on the back lawn, but I'm regularly getting a flock of about 15, pinching the suet pellets that I put out for the Starlings. It must be due to the extreme cold weather we are having driving the gulls away from frozen water in search of garden titbits.

This specimen has brown wing markings and a black tail without white spots which makes it a juvenile in its 1st winter plumage. In the summer, this bird will develop a dark chocolate coloured hood, which often looks black, and it is from this that gives the bird its name. The orange blob below its bum is actually a biscuit (in case you were wondering).

An even rarer bird that has given me a new garden tick is shown below.

This is a Common Gull Larus canus, and appeared with the same flock of Black-headed Gulls. It landed on the lawn once during observation, but I was unable to get the required photograph. Instead, it spent most of its time up on my neighbours roof watching the other birds get their fill. The word common is rather a misnomer in this case as the Black-headed Gull and Herring Gull are the more likely species to be seen.