Southern blues

I have yet to see a southern hawker at my local pond this year but they are around in Gosforth Park.  I have seen several females with normal colouring hunting in the glades in the reserve but was intrigued to find these two.  Both perched briefly, fairly high in the trees but just about within range of my 300mm lens.  The first is a male and to judge from his eye colouring he is immature.  Male southern hawkers generally have mostly lime green abdominal markings with sky blue on the last three segments (S8-S10).  This one is all blue which is a fairly uncommon form (it is described as rare in Smallshire & Swash's field guide).

This one is a female, also immature to judge from her eye colour, but she also has blue abdominal markings   A typical female southern hawker is all dark brown and lime green.  It is intriguing that these two unusual colour forms were side by side.  I'll try to find them again later this week to see if they retain this colouring as they mature.

For comparison, here are typical male (top) and female (below) southern hawkers from a previous year.

In many dragonflies immature males have colouring similar to females and in several species male-type colouring occurs in females.  I'll keep an eye out out for a southern hawker on my local pond.

A walk round the pond - week 30

The hot dry weather continued until yesterday but in the last 24 hours we have had rain.  I reckon the smaller pond is at least 20cm below normal level and the larger one 30cm below.  There is a little more rain in the forecast but I expect it may not do much to refill the ponds, although it may at least refresh the vegetation.  Ruddy darters were still the most numerous dragonflies this week.  There were several mating pairs.

Common darters are around but I saw only one male with mature colouring and he was camera shy.  His outfit was a perfect match for the berries.

Emperors, four-spotted chasers and common hawkers were all flying but this week I saw no black darters, although I expect they are still around.  Common blue, blue-tailed and emerald damselflies are still present as well.

There were plenty of burnet moths.  It isn't always easy to count the spots but these look like six-spot burnets, whereas a few weeks ago I was seeing five-spot burnets.

One of this pair has orange spots.

They were joined on their flower by a male red-tailed bumblebee looking for nectar.

I did monthly the bumblebee walk for the Bumblebee Conservation Trust this week and saw far more bees than in previous months.  It was hot a sunny and most were feeding on common knapweed.  This one is a common carder bee (Bombus pascuorum).  You can tell he is male because he has no pollen baskets on his hind legs and has 13 segments in his antennae (as opposed to 12 in a female).  In the second photo there is a scorpion fly in the background.

The continuing warm weather has also been good for butterflies.  This week I saw lots of peacocks,

and a small copper,

and some fresh-looking walls, presumably from a second emergence as there have been none for the past few weeks.

The green woodpeckers were much in evidence and I now recognise their squeaky contact calls.  I saw four but whether they are all youngsters or one is an adult I couldn't say.  I also found a stone surrounded by smashed snail shells which I am sure is a song thrush's anvil.

I haven't seen the little grebes for many weeks although I have heard them calling from the reeds.  This week they reappeared with a second brood of five chicks.

One parent caught what looks like a tadpole but it seemed to be a bit too big for the chicks.  It was offered and passed around for several minutes but I didn't see if one of the chicks managed to swallow it.

Two of the chicks preferred to take a ride on mum's (or dad's) back.

And - for the first time since my first walk in week 13 - no Canada geese.  The youngsters must have grown strong enough to fly but they have left the place looking a bit like the morning after at a festival site.  I'll hope for a pair of swans instead next year.

A summer coat

The roe deer are wearing their beautiful foxy red lightweight summer coats now.  This one was keeping a eye on me between mouthfuls but was happy to keeping munching.

A couple of solitary wasps

Oh dear.  I thought bees were bad enough with 275 UK species but now I read there are around 9000 species of wasp in this country.  Here are two I have seen in the garden recently -  so only 8998 to go.

We have only seven species of social wasp (such as the common wasp, Vespula vulgaris) and all the rest are solitary, meaning that there are no workers and each female lays eggs in her own nest (or someone else's - see below).  I have three standing dead sycamores near the front door and last winter I drilled some 8mm holes in them.  When I checked recently I found most were occupied by wasps.  I think this one is an Ectemnius species, of which we have 10 in the UK.  Although I drilled a straight hole the wasp will make up to a dozen side burrows, each ending in a cell in which she lays an egg and provisions it with 6-12 flies for the larva to eat.

Two thirds of all the UK wasp species are parasitic, laying eggs in the larvae or pupae of the host insect.  Some are even hyperparasites, preying on other parasites.  This little beauty is a ruby-tailed wasp and is a kleptoparasite of solitary bees and wasps, meaning it lays its eggs in their nests and its larvae eat the host egg or larva and all the food in the cell.  It is probably Chrysis ignita, although there are several similar species.  It is only about 8mm long and runs around the wall checking for holes containing a possible host, so photographing it isn't easy.

A new butterfly

I don't go chasing butterflies but I have been keeping an eye out for these.  They are white-letter hairstreaks (Satyrium w-album) and have been seen on a couple of wych elms at the edge of Gosforth Park Nature Reserve for the past three weeks or so.  I have looked for them each time I visited but had never seen one until yesterday morning.

White-letter hairstreak caterpillars feed exclusively on elm trees so the population suffered greatly when Dutch elm disease wiped out most of the trees 40 years ago.

The white letter is a 'W' on the underwings and white-letter hairstreaks always rest with their wings closed.  I think these are all females - they were walking through the leaves looking for places to lay their eggs and have slightly longer "tails" on the back of the wings.

A walk round the pond - week 29

I have been looking forward to seeing this dragonfly but thought it would not be until August.  It is a male black darter (Sympetrum danae).  I have seen black darters at the pond each year, but in small numbers.  They are the least common of the darters here and probably have the shortest flight season.  I am not sure I have ever seen a female here but I probably wasn't looking very hard - I'll be keeping a good look out in the next few weeks.

Common darters are now more numerous with lots of immatures.  I saw a mating pair but didn't get a good enough photo to post.  This is a female.

This is an immature male.

Ruddy darters are still the most numerous dragonflies.  All the darters sometimes adopt this posture, especially in hot weather.  It is known as an obelisk posture, something I have rarely seen before, but perhaps then it wasn't warm enough.  It is thought to minimise overheating but may also be a territorial display.

There are now several male common hawkers but I have yet to see one at rest, or to see a female.

So far this year I have seen only two female emperor dragonflies but the males are still on patrol.  They do rest occasionally but usually too far away from the camera.

I think the season is over for the azure damselflies.  Damselflies I have seen this week are blue-tailed, emerald and, here, common blue.  

I often find insects I don't recognise and I usually take a photo so I can look it up later.  This one took a bit of tracking down but is a female soldier fly, Stratiomys potamida, also known as the banded general.

 And they are still here.