Two-fer

Common Daisy (Bellis perennis) with unidentified aphid

Now that the pace of spring is beginning to quicken, we're adding new species to the lists "at the rate of knots", which is a British expression for very rapidly indeed! Sometimes, we can even add multiples at once. I took a photo earlier this month of a Common Daisy growing in a corner of the driveway, only to spot the associated aphid once I'd downloaded the picture to my computer. The daisy was an easy one to identify; it's ubiquitous here—self-seeded into nearly every flowerbed, scattered throughout the lawn, springing up through the gravel driveway, etc. It's a flower I've always associated with England, but it's widespread across all of Europe too. Apparently, the word daisy is a corruption of "day's eye", a name presumably given to the flower because it folds itself closed at night. (Chaucer called it "eye of the day" in his prologue to The Legend of Good Women.)

I tried my hand at identifying the aphid too, but I'm quickly learning that we're going to have to become experts at a whole lot of things to keep this project moving forward. (Or, alternatively, we're going to have to find a whole lot of experts who can help us out.) According to this website, there are more than 500 genera of aphids worldwide, a bewildering number of which live in Europe. I'm guessing that with better photos, we may be able to come up with an ID though; those long legs and long antennae suggest perhaps a member of the genus Acyrthosiphon or Amphorophora.