Green Shield Bug (Palomena prasina) |
In late 2017, we moved into a house on a half-acre of land in rural England. We're working to make the site more wildlife-friendly and are hoping to document every species that lives in or visits the garden. Can we get to 1500?
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Sunday, 26 May 2019
Green
Friday, 24 May 2019
Caterpillar Hunter
Tachina fera |
Monday, 20 May 2019
Stretch
Tetragnatha montana (underside) |
The six British species of Tetragnatha spiders, informally known as "stretch spiders", are notable for their very long legs and very long abdomens. They'll leave their webs if disturbed, and extend their legs straight out in front of them along a blade of grass or reed stem or twig (i.e. "stretching"), which helps to camouflage them. They've got 8 eyes in two rows of four; click on the photo below to enlarge it if you want to see them clearly. The spider's location (away from water) and its size (its body just under half an inch long) also suggest this species. To be 100% sure, I'd have to examine its genitalia under a microscope — and I can't even pretend to be interested in doing that at this point!
Tetragnatha montana |
Saturday, 18 May 2019
Clepto
Female Panzer's Nomad Bee (Nomada panzeri) |
Nomad bees can be a challenge to identify, but the four orange stripes and the orange scutellar tubercles (the orange bumps between the wings) on the thorax of this one are distinctive. The bright orange antennae and the red band at the top of her abdomen are also important ID features. This species is very similar to the Flavous Nomad Bee, but that one has yellow hairs on the face, and the hairs on the side of the thorax (i.e. behind the front legs) aren't quite as white. The Panzer's Nomad Bee also has more red on the segments of its abdomen. Like many female nomad bees, her eyes are a bright red-orange; the male's are greenish, and his antennae are mostly dark. Because they collect no pollen, nomad bees don't tend to be very hairy. In fact, with their bright colors and bold markings, they look a bit like little wasps.
Friday, 10 May 2019
Celery-fly
Male "winter" Celery-fly (Euleia heraclei) |
There are a number of small "picture-winged" flies in Britain. This one has non-continuous bands which split at the back edge of the wing. Some of the flies we're seeing are jet black, while others are a reddish-brown (and a few are half and half). Apparently, the colour is temperature-dependent, with "winter flies" being darker than "summer flies". The books say those bright green eyes turn red when the fly dies, but given that I've seen more than one flying around with bright red eyes, I'm not sure they've got that 100% right. We'll apparently be seeing these flies until November. They're widespread all across Britain, and are considered agricultural pests, due to their habit of attacking the leaves of Celery, Parsnip and other related species. But here in our garden, we don't care what they do to the Alexanders!
Another male; this one half-"winter", half-"summer" |
Wednesday, 8 May 2019
Sunny Two
Lesser Celandine (Ficaria verna) |
Monday, 6 May 2019
Miner One
Tawny Mining Bee (Andrena fulva) |
Friday, 3 May 2019
Cinnamon
Cinnamon Bug (Corizus hyoscyami) |
Thursday, 2 May 2019
Slow Down
Sloe Bug (Dolycoris baccarum) |
Wednesday, 1 May 2019
Lichen It
Funny how you can look at something regularly and still not see everything about it. I rechecked an old wooden bench in our garden that I'd already looked at multiple times and discovered a single colony of Flavoparmelia caperata growing amongst the other lichen colonies there. Given how distinctive it is, I'm surprised I didn't notice it earlier. This leafy lichen (a type called "foliose" in official lichen lingo) is a rather unique yellow-grey colour when dry (hence Flavoparmelia — flavo meaning "yellow") and a bright apple green when wet. This is a baby colony, measuring a bit less than an inch wide; at maturity, it may stretch across more than 8 inches. Its lobes are very wide (up to 1 cm or 1/2-inch) and quite wrinkly and contorted. They'll become even more so as the lichen matures. The central surface is already sprinkled with coarse soredia (lichen's way of spreading itself) even though it's a young colony. That little pink spot on the lichen's left side is a hostile fungus, one of the lichenicolous species that survives only by parasitizing a lichen.
According to Frank Dobson's seminal Lichens: An Illustrated Guide to the British and Irish Species, Flavoparmelia caperata is "very common on acid-barked deciduous trees" in the south of England. I guess old wooden benches are the next best thing! It's also found on rocks, roofs and mosses (which it overgrows). It has been badly impacted by high sulfur dioxide levels in the UK, but now that we're getting air pollution levels under better control, it's beginning to recolonize some areas where it had previously been eradicated. It's even been found on the grounds of Buckingham Palace!