Southern Marsh Orchids

Southern Marsh Orchids

Thursday 21 May 2015

Creigiau this afternoon

Attracted into the garden this afternoon by the first ever visit of a Large Red Damselfly, but I was soon distracted by the activity in one of the raised beds. Black ants and Speckled Bush Cricket nymphs were everywhere


and these were soon joined by brief visits from a Syrphus hoverfly, probably Eupeodes corolla. 


I struggled to get some pictures of a Planthopper (approx 3mm) - a later look at ‘British Bugs’ suggested that this strange looking beastie was a member of the Delphacidae family, possibly one of the Javesella sp..




A speck on a leaf turned out to be a tiny (approx. 1mm) brown bug – no idea what this was, 


or where to start looking, but the icing on the cake was a visit from a couple of Picture-winged Flies. Very twitchy and difficult to get a good view in the camera but the image taken is almost identical to one on ‘NatureSpot’ of Tephritis neesii.


The black ants are everywhere and I regularly see Speckled Bush Crickets through the summer and autumn, but this was the first time I’ve seen the others - a very pleasant hour in the garden.


4 comments:

  1. The picture-winged fly is very handsome.

    The small brown bug is a parasitised aphid - they turn shiny brown and swollen-looking when parasitised. There will be tiny parasitic wasp waiting to emerge from it.

    ReplyDelete
  2. Thanks George. The 'picture-wing' was on the plants again today, don't know if it's the same one but it certainly is a poser - sits on a leaf opening and closing it's wings!

    The tiny brown bug hasn't moved, so I'll snip the leaf and stick it into a pot and see what happens.

    ReplyDelete