A walk round the pond - Week 26

The rain in recent weeks has been good for nature generally but hasn't been great for insects.  Fine weather over the past three days has encouraged much more activity.  A new species this week was the emerald damselfly.

Another new finding was a single teneral female common darter

I also saw a single immature male broad-bodied chaser.  I have still never seen a mature male here.

Several male emperors were on patrol but they were too busy to stop for a photo.  The only one I saw at rest was right across the far side.

I also saw one female ovipositing, a bit too far away for my lens.  I may be tempted to take the big lens next week.

There were four-spotted chasers a-plenty, enjoying the sunshine.

There were a lot more blue-tailed damselflies this week.

Large red damselflies were still around.

There were dozens of azure damselflies (this is a female)

and common blue damselflies.

The sunshine brought out lots of butterflies.  There were still plenty of painted ladies, common blues and large skippers.  New this week were meadow browns

and ringlets.

Some cinnabar moths now look a bit faded

but the five-spot burnets are fresh

Here's moth I don't think I have seen before.  I had to look it up - it is a latticed heath (Chiasmia clathrata).

An insect I haven't noticed here before is a red and black froghopper, also known as a black and red froghopper (Cercopis vulnerata).

I definitely haven't seen this beauty before.  It is a golden-bloomed grey longhorn beetle (Agapanthia villosoviridescens).  It is not rare although (until now) it has not been recorded on iRecord in Northumberland.

I found a pure white orchid.  Having consulted the Natural History Museum's Orchid Identification Guide, my best guess is that it is white form of the common spotted orchid (Dactylorhiza fuchsii).