Apart from the excitement of the Scarce 7-spot Ladybird and the Hieroglyphic Ladybird there were several other good finds last month. The smallest ladybird I have seen, and the equal smallest anywhere at 1.1-1.5mm, was the appropriately named Dot Ladybird, another new species from my mother's garden in Northamptonshire.
Not quite as small but also black and hairy was a Forestier's Ladybird.
Closer to home I found another small black hairy one, a Scymnus nigrinus,
and another very small ladybird, a Scymnus suturalis,
Also several Adonis Ladybirds,
a 2-spot Ladybird form typica,
and the less common and more striking 2-spot f. sexpustulata.
Rather more camouflaged were a Larch Ladybird,
an 18-spot Ladybird,
and a Striped Ladybird.
Others were an Eyed Ladybird,
a Pine Ladybird,
and a Cream-spot Ladybird.
And finally more Hieroglyphic Ladybirds. This one was in Elemore Park in Co Durham,
and a rare black form in Havannah, just down the road.
By next month all the ladybirds will be hibernating and attention will shift to overwintering sites such as gravestones.
I don't take as many dragonfly photos these days, mainly because I already have good photos of the species I see regularly. I do still take record shots to convince the county recorder when I submit records and I take a few if they would make an appealing picture. 2025 has been a good year for many insects, including dragonflies, and locally we have seen good numbers of previously rare species. Here are some of my recent pictures.
Broad-bodied Chaser. This was the first dragonfly I saw this year and features on the front cover of the latest edition of The NHSN Magazine.
Ruddy Darter. This is an immature male and is fairly rare in Gosforth Nature Reserve (GNR). I like the way the wings were in focus as well.
Emperor Dragonfly, the first time I have had a reasonable photo of one on the Hepple Estate but it was a bit too close to the background to be good. This is a male.
Brown Hawker. We had only one previous record of a male in GNR but there was lots of activity this year. This is a male on patrol.
And a female ovipositing. Females were observed on several occasion over six weeks so with luck we'll end up with a breeding population in the reserve.
Another species with only a single previous record in the reserve, a Black-tailed Skimmer. This time we had multiple males and at least one ovipositing female. This is a male.
A male Common Hawker, also from GNR.
And mating Common Hawkers from Cragside.
A male Golden-ringed Dragonfly from Hepple.
A female Black Darter, also from Hepple.
A male Small Red-eyed Damselfly in GNR. This species first moved north of the River Tyne last year and our reserve has the most northerly UK record.
Finally another damselfly from GNR and a new species for me. This is a male Willow Emerald Damselfly. The reserve has the most northerly UK record for this one as well.
The dragonfly season will soon be over. Let's hope next year is as good as this has been.
One of my WeaselCam boxes has just spent eight weeks in Elemore Park in Sunderland. The main aim was to record the local weasels although I was also hoping the camera would also see the local Greater White Toothed Shrew - a hope that was realised. In the first two weeks there were only a few recordings - of shrews and voles and all in daytime. In the following four weeks the camera recorded 300 wood mouse videos, 150 vole videos and three weasel videos but no shrews. The pattern was similar in the last two weeks - lot of mice and voles but this time there were 11 weasel recordings, although still no shrews.
To start with the weasel was very wary and was reluctant to come right into the box.
Then it got a bit more confident.
In the last two weeks it was in the box nearly every day.
It seemed fascinated by something behind the camera (there was nothing there) often staying for 30s at a time. At times it was jumping around like a stoat, unfortunately mostly out of view. Here are the best bits edited from the 11 recordings.
I think this is probably all the same female weasel although it is difficult to be sure as some of the views were fleeting. The likelihood is that the box was in her territory and she certainly got more used to it with time. My only disappointment is that the shrews didn't show after the first two weeks - perhaps they were put off by the smell of weasel (or perhaps the weasel had eaten them all!). The camera box is off elsewhere for a while but we hope to return it to Elemore Park for more weasel and shrew recordings in the near future.
It is a long time since I posted pictures of a sparrowhawk in the garden. Last winter's bird was a bit of a dead loss because he hunted round the feeders by the kitchen window instead of sitting on the perch in the kitchen garden. I had seen a new bird around in the garden recently and then I had a very close encounter. When I went out to the greenhouse he was sitting in the doorway eating a robin and he panicked and flew farther in. The only way get him out was to go round the outside to the far end. Here he is looking through the window.
I had time to take a short video on the phone and moments later he realised he could escape and flew out through the door.
Prior to that I had noticed days when the level of seed in the feeder in the kitchen garden didn't drop so I guessed a new sparrowhawk must be around. And here he is, posing nicely on the perch.
Sitting there was a bit obvious so he also tried hiding low down on the raised beds.
And sometimes sitting high up on the feeder support, although that's even more obvious.
This is a newly independent first year male so he is still learning his trade but there are plenty of small birds in the garden, at least there are when he's not here.
Then a couple of days ago I saw this one - a second year bird. Sparrowhawks moult into adult plumage at the end of their first year and you can see this one has a mixture of blue and brown feathers. He has replaced most of his juvenile plumage but the outer tail feathers and some of the body and head feathers are still brown.
And a bonus video of a sparrowhawk that appeared on one of my otter cameras, also a first year bird and probably female as it looks bigger. I think the call in the background is a buzzard and not another sparrowhawk.
A second ladybird post in a row but I thought I ought to share this. It was quite a week, starting off with the discovery of a Scarce 7-spot Ladybird. I signed off last week's post by saying "Hieroglyphic Ladybird is top of my wish list. Do let me know if you know where I can find one - and expect to see a photo here if I do."
And the very next morning I found one, or two to be precise. I called in to Havannah Nature Reserve, a couple of miles from here, just to have a look around because it is a local ladybird hotspot, great for conifer specialists such as Striped, 18-spot and Eyed Ladybirds. It is predominantly lowland heath with a lot of heather and gorse and Scots pines, a rare habitat around here, but Hieroglyphic Ladybird had never been recorded there so I wasn't at all expecting to find one. And then there it was in my sweep net. It was quite active so I took few photos in the net but before I could get a more natural-looking background it flew off.
It is quite a lot smaller than a 7-spot Ladybird and the colour is old gold with the markings you can see, which must have reminded someone of Egyptian hieroglyphs. After it had gone I carried on my search and ten minutes later, to my amazement, I found another one.
Later that day Chris Barlow, a noted local naturalist and entomologist, found two more and the following day James Common, our local ladybird expert, found another so there is obviously something going on. Until a few days ago Hieroglyphic Ladybird was the rarest, or least often reported, conspicuous ladybird in the North East Ladybird Spot. Within the past two or three weeks there have been several records from the Durham Coast as well so things are changing.
There are also lots of Heather Beetles at Havannah, something Chris says he has never seen before, and Hieroglyphic Ladybirds and their larvae eat Heather Beetle larvae. The habitat is right so the supposition is that this year's fine weather has encouraged the establishment of a population of Heather Beetles and the Hieroglyphic Ladybirds have found them and taken advantage. With luck both will become established. On Sunday I went back and Chris found another one which he kindly allowed me to photograph.
I think that's enough on ladybirds for a while so we'll have something completely different for my next post.
