Southern Marsh Orchids

Southern Marsh Orchids

Wednesday 8 April 2015

bugs in the evening sunshine

Sat in the garden with some tea close to hand, enjoying the last of the Monday evening sunshine and found myself watching the insects 'dancing' in the air. The dance extended as far as I could see over the neighbouring gardens and ended abruptly when the sun set.

There appeared to be two layers of participants. the lower layer included these two little beasties, approx. 5-10mm, who paused for a while on the wooden patio furniture.



The upper layer consisted of larger Tipulidae. These appeared to fly in more elaborate patterns and occasionally two would join and fly/tumble to rest on the garden woodwork.


Don't know what any of these are but it was mesmerising to watch.

4 comments:

  1. Dave might be able to help with the crane-flies.

    Not sure about the first beetle. The second one is a Rove beetle (Staphylinidae), characterised by the short wing cases leaving most of the abdomen exposed. There are a mere 1,080 species in the UK, so probably not identifiable to species level from a photo.

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  2. Thanks George. Looked up 'rove beetles' and from this I think I may have identified an image in my 'anon' box - I'll post a picture to see if I'm right!

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  3. I think the Craneflies are probably Dicranomyia chorea - the spring form is this dark colour (more yellowy in summer) and had a few in my garden at around this time.

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