Grey days

So far July has been cool, grey and windy. It really won't do! Chris and I are still limiting our outings to safe and little-frequented areas' I am a little more adventurous perhaps, but Chris is very vulnerable and plays it safe.


Stefen Hill Pocket Park received a visit today but I didn't tarry. I did a little desultory sweeping of grassy areas and noted a leaf mine on a Meadow Buttercup, Ranunculus acris.

The mine of Phytomyza ranunculivora on Meadow Buttercup.

Stefen Hill Pocket Park, 6 July, 2020

It appeared to be the work of a phytomyza and once home I confirmed that it was Phytomyza ranunculivora. No surprise there but it was new for the pocket park.

I had netted a brown, dark-headed beetle which I initially failed to recognise. In truth it did look familiar but not until I was home could I confirm that it was one of the Darkling Beetles, in this case the common Lagria hirta. It is sometimes placed in its own family. the Lagriidae.

Lagria hirta was in a grass-litter mix beneath trees. Stefen Hill Pocket

Park.. 6 July, 2020.  Photo via Google

As the specific name suggests, it is a distinctly hairy beetle but it was a little worn and its hirsute nature wasn't obvious in the field.  Excuses, excuses! But it too was new for the pocket park.

The Horse Chestnuts are becoming disfigured by the depredations of the Horse Chestnut Leaf Miner Moth, Cameraria ohridella.

I gathered a handful of the worst-affected leaves and took them home. The moth is attacked by a number of parasitoids, mostly wasps, so I am keeping the leaves to see what emerges. So far five insects have emerged and they are all...Cameraria ohridella. Bugger! But I'll keep the leaves for another two or three weeks.




Bumblebees, after what I felt was a slow start, are now present in numbers, with the Buff-tailed Bumblebee, Bombus terrestris, particularly common, working bramble blossom in droves.



Buff-tailed Bumblebee on bramble blossom.

Stefen Hill Pocket Park, Daventry

Three days later and I still haven't got around to checking out all my specimens. This evening perhaps...