No spider pictures included...

I love to get feedback on this blog and it's inspiring to know that folks are actually interested in this 'stuff' enough to follow,comment etc. It's only a couple of days since the last update but through the grapevine, I heard that a few were put off from reading the blog by virtue of there being..."Too many spider pictures"

And so for the arachnophobes, (Ladies!)  I thought I'd try and make-up for any distress caused by providing another update that will not only be spider-free, but will consist of just 'pretty-pretty' photographs...

Click on any photo for larger view

Yesterday morning I was out and about quite early and it was just a joy to be walking in the fog and mist with the sun just breaking through...

At one point the sun burst through a line of distant trees and I tried to get the camera as low to the ground as possible to include the frosty landscape...

Sometimes I just get inspired to take photographs by the conditions and beauty of nature itself. This particular morning was one of those times when not only did things seem to be demanding to be photographed, but for once, everything that I attempted seemed to result in a photograph that was very close to what I pictured in my mind when taking the shot....that doesn't happen often and so I made the most of it...

I know the purists amongst my photographer friends will say that in these pictures the light around the sun is 'blown' but I actually don't mind that myself and it is very close to how I experienced it.

The stands of what I think were cow parsley? made for quite a dramatic addition to the landscape...

I suppose I must have been out walking for about an hour when I took these next pictures and by now the sun was beginning to burn off the mist...

I need to revisit this particular area at dawn one day, or perhaps dusk, because I think I might get an opportunity to photograph roe deer. Just to the left of these pictures I spotted signs of the deer...

Now although I really enjoyed using the point & shoot for these landscape shots, in fact I have been inspired to try more of this kind of thing by one particular flickr contact (you know who you are) I found the lure of the macro lens to hard to resist entirely. The following two photos are from the DSRL with the 100mm macro attached...

Ice on a leaf edge

Ice in a puddle

That then was my early morning walk on a day that developed into a real beauty with cloudless blue skies. A far cry from the next photo taken around a week ago...

Before I take my leave until the next update, returning to the spiders for just a moment...have you heard of 'exposure therapy'? Well my excuse for including them occasionally is based around this (honestly)... systematic desensitisation! It's for your own good...the more pictures you see, the less you become afraid.

A few other arachnophobia facts:

Percentage of women affected compared to men? What would you think?

Answer: Women: 50% Men: 10%

Some scientists believe that we may be born with the phobia.

Would you say that arachnophobia is a common phobia that affects many people?

Answer: Latest estimates put it at only a maximum of 6% of the population.

 Until the next time then...

Return of the inverts...

Aradidae have the common name of 'Flat Bugs' and if ever an adjective was  aptly used, surely it's right here?
Flat bugs of course refers to their extremely flat bodies...

Click any photo for a larger view

Although these bugs are fairly widely distributed across Britain and Wales, they are rarely seen as they secrete themselves under the bark of various (particularly native) deciduous trees such as oak.

The species that I found here is named Aneurus laevis and the first two pictures here are of adults of the species.

The nymphs (young) are totally different in appearance and could even be mistaken for a different species initially. Here's a photo of adult and nymph side-by-side for comparison...

And of the nymphs on their own....

I understand that there are 7 species in the U.K. and that they feed on fungi.

Cumbersome as they must look, they can actually fly as this original drawing demonstrates...

The last photo here shows a couple of nymphs at different stages of development...

With a vast improvement in the weather over the last few days,I have now been able to record several 'firsts' for 2013...by that I mean, the first example I have found of an invertebrate species this year. I'm holding my breath for this improvement to stay with us to give me time to spot a few more, that I know friends have already been lucky enough to see for themselves. 

On a sunny wall at the weekend I spotted and photographed my first salticid (Jumping spider) who was busily scooting around looking no doubt for an easy meal...

Salticus scenicus

The same day and this time in the garden, I came across my first nursery-web spider. This one was sunning itself on a wooden fence panel...

I love these common spiders with those little floppy 'ears' either side of the eyes. Somehow they seem to have very expressive faces~both this and the jumping spider are females.

Venturing further afield one day in search of inverts proved to be less successful than I'd hoped and more to the point, resulted in sore feet from wandering around in cold/wet wellington boots all day...well, probably not all day but long enough!

I did spot my first shield bug of the year though sitting on a tree in deciduous woodland. This one was Troilus luridus, a species that overwinters as an adult...

On any given day of bug hunting I always try and make time for a couple of arty style shots...

And this colourful little snail brings to an end another blog update.

Until the next time...

Summer bugs and a male ghost...

We are so close to spring now here in the U.K. that you can almost smell it but winter seems intent on holding us in its icy grip for as long as possible. With that in mind,I've decided for the purposes of this update, we are already there. We have been promised temperatures in double figures by the end of the week and so who knows...

Click any photo to view on black

A Six-spot Burnet Moth

Burnet moths,unlike most others , come out in the daytime. They are safe from predators like birds because they taste horrible and are slightly poisonous. They advertise this fact with their striking colours.

I shall be looking for these again come June-August on hot, sunny days when they'll be feeding on knapweed and scabious.

A month earlier in May, we should start to see the first,early common blue butterflies..

A Common Blue Butterfly

I think this one above is a male. I'm crossing my fingers for a much better year this time around as last year I saw only a tiny percentage of the numbers I expected.

With any luck,these will be around in numbers locally in grassy areas,meadows and woodland clearings from May through to September at least.

An early morning 'blue' covered in dew

Here's another shot taken early morning, one of my very favourite times to be out with the camera...

A Springtail (Collembola)

From memory I am fairly sure this one is Pogonognathellus longicornis, the longest springtail in the UK with the longest name. Looking at the antennae here it seems to fit but I haven't photographed any for a while now and I'm always dubious of relying on memory alone.

A Meadow Brown Butterfly

The meadow brown is one of our commonest butterflies through the summer months and can be found in most parts of the British Isles.

Females are larger than males but males darker than the females. I am forever being told about 'black' butterflies that folks have spotted in summertime and in reality, it always turns out to be a male meadow brown.

Of the many ladybirds to be found in my little corner of Kent, this one, the little 22-spot is a favourite of mine. At just 3-4mm they are one of the smaller beetles and although named 22 spot, they can have 20, 21, or 22 spots.
I think I'm correct in also saying that the pronotum can be white or yellow in this species.



Next up is one of our common bugs...

A Green-shield Bug

Palomena prasina, the green shieldbug can be found throughout the year but may be harder to spot in winter as it acquires a brown coat until spring when it reverts to green.

They can often be seen sitting in the sun on the leaves of bramble, nettle, hazel  or dock. hey feed on sap and unripe seeds.

Supposed to give off a nasty smell to deter predators (something I've never witnessed myself) they are also sometimes called stinkbugs.

A nest of baby spiders

Another thing I shall be looking out for come summer, these little spider nurseries are fascinating and when disturbed, the spiderlings will scurry to all parts, returning to this ball shape as soon as the danger has passed.

Now this one pictured above I'm not too sure of at all. I am assuming it's one of the larger ants, formica species possibly? But just not confident of an identity for this one. I found it sitting on a fence post beside local woodland.

A male Ghost Moth

To complete this little taste of spring/summer, here's a fantastic British moth called a ghost moth. Again, this is a fairly common species and can be seen flying at dusk during June & July. How can I be sure this is a male? Well because only the males are white, females being yellow marked with orange.

Until the next time then...

Underneath the ice, something stirred...

Having started the week with white-stuff a'plenty.....

...it was nice to see a thaw revealing some greenery again as the week went on. The snow is great and very pretty but this is 'England's Green and Pleasant Land' and our 'greenness' is what makes Kent  special.

By Wednesday, the countryside was looking like this..... 

As the thaw took hold things began to melt quite fast-at the bottom of the garden (or 'yard' if you're in the U.S.) there's an old butlers sink that doubles as a little pond. It's not much, but holds just enough water to encourage a few extra bugs and insects into the garden.

I lifted a slab of ice that covered the entire water surface from the sink and I guess was around 40mm thick to discover underneath a few bits of debris that had I suppose been in the water, but had now become stuck to the ice.

Amongst these I was very surprised to find something moving. I grabbed my camera and once I got the macro on this tiny, dark object, I could see that it was a damselfly nymph...

I hadn't realised that there were damselflies in the pond until now but even more amazing was that this little one survived the ice.

The other thing I spotted was this tiny creature...

I am fairly sure this is a water flea (Daphnia?) I wouldn't want to attempt a closer identity than this because, for instance, if it is Daphnia, this genus alone contains 150 species.

My first flying insect of the year appeared on the window one morning after heavy rain. I think it's a midge of some kind?

Having found the damselfly nymph I decided to check out the water barrel in another corner of the garden. This is a good spot for finding springtails and I wondered how they had survived. They ought to have done well as they can cope with very low temperatures.

I was expecting to find the usual globular springtails, but actually only spotted this one which I think is probably Vertagopus arboreus...

Vertagopus arboreus?

Out in the field I have struggled to find much of interest through the recent bad weather but there are signs of spring now and just today I saw a number of green leaf buds on trees.

I was also really pleased when I spotted this wild daffodil close to opening already...

It seemed to me that there must be a connection between finding this first daffodil of the year on the very day that would have been the birthday of a good friend I lost a year ago, called 'Daph'.

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On one recent outing, I did come across these little eggs... 

I thought maybe these were snail eggs at first. I was basing it mainly on their resemblance (although obviously smaller) to my African Land Snails. The other thought was possibly slug? I dismissed that idea because I have found slug eggs before and they have always been transparent.

Having had my curiosity aroused I decided to take a few home to observe. I didn't have long to wait because a few days later I was wishing that I hadn't dismissed slugs so quickly...

O.K. so my initial guess at an identity proved to be wrong but I now think that perhaps slug eggs are transparent until they are close to hatching when the colour of the slug becomes visible. If that's a load of falafel, then I would like to submit to the court that my second guess was right!

Of the few evergreen trees I noticed that there seem to be a large number of Holly that have been affected by the holly leaf miner...

The story of the little leaf miner is quite complicated but I've added a small diagram below showing the basics, then I'll add a link to a full explanation at the bottom of this blog post should you want to explore it further.

Ah, you see...I may be getting older but I'm not getting senile yet! If I add the link here, you'll be off to read that instead of completing my blog entry won't you.

In the same woods as I found the holly, I saw this very strange tree. I have added a version of this to my flickr page but it's one that I've added a sort of HDR effect to, this one is the original...

It looks a bit gruesome don't you think? As if it's been mortally wounded.

By way of compensation, I'll end this update with a 'pretty in pink' photo! This is a horned tree hopper that I photographed last summer in amongst the pink willow-herb flowers...

That's it then, until the next update.....

Link to the leaf miner life cycle in full