Saturday, July 18, 2020

I am the egg man!


It's May 24th at around 8:15am. I am out walking in my favourite woods when I spot this tiny egg. It looks freshly laid judging by the pale colour, and the shape is fairly distinctive to me. This is a bug which to my complete amazement made headlines on the BBC  when it was spotted in Nottinghamshire as late as 2015:

'An extremely rare insect has been found during a challenge to identify 1,000 organisms at a park in Nottinghamshire.'

'Tim Sexton, from Nottinghamshire Wildlife Trust, said the find was "significant" and was the first time it had ever been recorded in the county.'

Anyhow, here's the egg that Johnny spotted...


And here's the progression over the next few days...

May 27 Red areas appear inside the egg

May 27


May 29 some darkening

May 30

May 31 It rolls over!

May 31 All is well with further darkening

May 31 A cavity begins to open

The following morning, the tiny nymph of a Box Bug (Gonocerus acuteangulatus) puts in an appearance...

June 01 at around 10am

By the next morning, it had already darkened and the abdomen become less squat.

June 02


June 02
Very little changed regards appearance over the next week or so...

June 11

June 15

June 17

Then 2 days later, it moulted...

June 19 moult

June 19
It was at this point that I thought it was time for the youngster to leave home and make his/her way in the world. So pleased to have had the opportunity to observe the first few days of this terrific little insect though.






I gotta get back to the garden. Take care of the world that's taking care of me...

I thought for this update I would change things up a little and share with you one particular day from my rather small, but very busy garden. This is going to be short on text but big on photographs. 


Here we go then, it's July 17th of 2020 and this is a reflection of that day...



















On Cosmos (not sure of bug species)



One of many on the Nasturtiums right now


















On Cosmos again








It was a real treat to find these on the Woundwort plants. I knew I had Woundwort Shieldbugs, but this is the first year I have found Hairy Shieldbugs in the garden.




One of many Hoverflies seen today, but I have more chance of knitting fog than identifying most of these!





The 'Andromeda Lacebug', found on Japonica. This species is a fairly recent arrival in the UK and was first recorded in 1998. It is native to Japan, where it feeds on Pieris japponica and has been introduced into the USA and Europe via the plant trade.



Several batches of eggs in the garden today



































Looks huge here but actually less than 5mm