Cuckoo flowers, Cuckoo-spit, but no Cuckoo yet...

Shall we begin with something beautiful? It might soften the blow, if, or when, we get to the spider photos, if nothing else?

This is how one of the ponds in Comfort's Wood looked on my last visit a few days ago. Stunning isn't it. I'm none too sure about the amount of pond/duckweed, but it sure looks pretty.

Meanwhile, looking at the darker side of what is happening in the woods, the ash dieback (Hymenoscyphus fraxineus) has burned great holes into the wooded areas...

This might actually be a portend of the direction this update will take, because I have a couple of 'on the other hand' type stories to relate.

For now though, in my own garden, and around the house, has provided some finds in the past few days: this micro-moth was one of two that I spotted one morning...

            I think it might well be one of the Incurvaria species? Edit: Esperia sulphurella Sulphur Tubic (Thanks to Maria J)

Then there was this flat-backed millipede scurrying around on the furniture in the garden...

The mother of all aphids turned up inside the house one day...

I suspect this one will be Macrosiphum rosae, a rose aphid.

Oh yes, lots of these 'Bluebottles' around right now too...

Calliphora vomitoria is actually a species of blow fly. Cracking name though eh? vomitoria!

Back to Comfort's wood now. I can't believe that in an update for 2020, I stated that my first sighting of a scorpion fly was not until October! Here's one I photographed this week...

It's a male, as can be seen by that scorpion-like 'tail', that is not a tail at all, but a penis.

I saw both male and female orange-tip butterflies in the woods. Mostly on and around the cuckoo-flower (no sign of the cuckoo itself yet). But there were plenty of these fabulous insects in the same areas...

The dark-edged bee-fly (Bombylius major)

The dark-edged bee-fly (Bombylius major)

Yes, I know they look a tad menacing; but that spear is nothing more than a drinking straw, and so they are totally harmless. That is of course, unless you are another insect! While adult bee-flies are adorable, a young bee-fly isn't quite as endearing. The larva is a parasitoid, meaning it is a parasite that will end up killing its host. Many bee-fly species are parasites of bees and wasps, but there are some that target beetles, grasshoppers, ants, moths or caterpillars.

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What I did forget to mention was that one of my best finds was actually on the car when I arrived. I'm not sure if it rode with me, or arrived as I parked...

A beautiful little longhorn beetle. Pogonocherus species. My photos don't show enough detail for me to be sure which one, but probably either P. hispidus, or P. hispidulus. Edit: Pogonocherus hispidus (Thanks to Maria J. for correct ID)

I got to photograph my first weevil of the year this week too...

Judging by the general appearance, and shape of the antennae, I think this one is an acorn weevil (Curculio glandium)

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Harking back to an earlier topic now, I wanted to share this little video from my garden. It shows how, after a long wait, the blue tits have now decided to use the new nest box. Unfortunately, as you will see in the second half of the video,  the neighbour's cat has already discovered this!

(Just a reminder here that this video may be too large to appear in the emailed version of my blog)

I'm reinforcing the access points to try and keep the moggy at bay, I don't want a repeat of what happened May of 2017 when a different cat destroyed the nest and babies.

Here's the spider picci then - I held off as long as I could, and anyhow, it's a really smart little jumping spider that I spotted on the hydrangea in the garden... 

I think that I have only seen one bug nymph thus far this year. And a tiny one it was too; looking quite ant-like as it tried its very best to avoid being photographed on the hawthorn...

This is an instar of the bug 'Miris striatus'. These overwinter as eggs, hatching in April.

At the same location I found these tiny hopper nymphs too...

And doing what they do: making all that 'cuckoo-spit'. 

Lastly for this update, a stonefly...

Also spotted on the hawthorn.

Oh, alright then...one more before I get my coat, a few hoverflies...

Hedge and Frog-hoppers...

I think it was Homer (Simpson, not the Greek bloke of The Iliad fame) who said "If it wasn't for bad luck, I would have no luck at all."

That's how it feels some days anyhow. Days when you think that if they invented a pill for everlasting life, you'd die swallowing it!

Here then is my tale of bad luck: but in the best BBC manner (not) I shall try to create a balance by regaling you with one of good fortune (hopefully) too. 

I am not even sure this woeful fable is down to luck at all; and having done my utmost to research in every manner possible, (I even probed my annals) I am still none-the-wiser. Wanna know what this concerns then? Of course you do: you only have an 8 second attention span, and that ran out about...8 seconds ago!

YES...the dreaded female mosquito. I try to love all insects equally, but when I hear the high-pitched whine of an approaching mossie it tries my patience to say the least. But why do I keep getting bitten lately? For years and years, they didn't pester me at all. What has changed, or is it down to luck?

A few years ago I suffered a nasty bout of pneumonia, and I think that could be relevant! I'll expound on my theory shortly, but firstly here are some known reasons why you might be a target:
Tall people, overweight people, females in general, wearing dark clothes, and something I need to check out myself, your blood group can be an indicator, and I have no clue as to what my blood type is. Type O seems to be favoured by the little blighters.

The following clip from an article I read seemed quite harsh...

Non-attractive indeed!

I'll press pause on the mosquito rant there: it's already getting too wordy. Let's indulge in some bug photographs for a while...

Philaenus spumarius - A Common Froghopper

I often see the little froghoppers that make this 'cuckoo spit', but usually they are much smaller and yellow in colour. Once adult, they no longer need the protection of the foam bubbles. My guess is that this one had just completed its final moult and was still the pale, teneral colour of a freshly emerged adult hopper. 

A fully mature Common Froghopper

2019 has again proved to be quite a poor year for sightings of true bug nymphs. I have seen and photographed a few, but numbers have been well down for a few years in a row now. I was lucky enough to spot this character though: this is a late instar nymph of Rhabdomiris striatellus which is usually associated with oak.

Grypocoris stysi - A Mirid Bug

This little bug is found widely throughout the UK, usually on nettles in woodland, and sometimes umbellifers. The adults and larvae feed on both flower heads and small invertebrates such as aphids. 

I've found adults of this species too; this was in my garden on the cosmos flowers...

Grypocoris stysi (adult)

Miris striatus next: the nymphs of this species are rather ant-like and are quite dark in contrast to the striking adults...

Miris striatus nymph (Miridae)

I have seen lots of these Fencepost Jumping Spiders over the years, but never one quite as long as this one...

It really was like a stretch-spider! I guess one spider is probably one too many, and so let's move on to something much nicer shall we. How about a bug carrying its own excrement on its back...

Cassida viridis larva

Yum! Well I suppose the idea is to put off any would be predator; it would certainly make me think twice about making a meal of this one. Here's what the adult looks like, much better huh...

Cassida viridis - A Green Tortoise Beetle

I still have to tell you about my stroke of good fortune, don't I. Firstly though, let's return briefly to the mosquito story. Doctor Jonathan Gray, a medical entomologist, says that your metabolic rate could be a prime factor in making you attractive to the local mosquito population.

He concludes that mosquitoes use CO2 as their primary means of identifying bite targets. “All vertebrates produce carbon dioxide, so what better way could there be for a mosquito to cue in on a host?” Physically exerting yourself raises your metabolic rate, he adds. 

My theory is that since having pneumonia a while back, I know that my lungs have never fully recovered, and that means I can get short of breath much faster than before. A raised metabolic rate makes me irresistible to females! Female MOSQUITOES that is of course.

And the good news is?

By the way, I never did understand that song by Hedgehoppers Anonymous: 'It's Good News Week'

Lyrics: 

It's good news week

Someone's dropped a bomb somewhere

Contaminating atmosphere

And blackening the sky

It's good news week

Someone's found a way to give

The rotting dead a will to live

Go on and never die have you heard the news...

Irony I guess? Anyhow, I digress, my little bit of good fortune was finding this on one of my early morning walks with the hound...

A FIVE-leaf clover...count 'em...FIVE!

I've found a number of four-leaved across the years, but never five. I needed to find out more and so I plucked my Googling finger from inside my shirt, where it had been scratching my ever so itchy mossie bites, and got typing. That isn't my question at the top of this article by the way, that's just what came up when I put 5 leaf-clover into Google...

The good news then is that I am one in 20,000 (and I always thought I'd been won in a raffle). Surely by default this means though that I will need 20,000 more walks before I find another? No time like the present then; I'm away to cut that down to 19,999 walks required. One last photo to complete this update...

Long-jawed orb-weaver - Tetragnatha extensa

Psocid to me baby!

Here we go again then. Time for another update. The whole point of these updates, well the whole point of my blog actually, is to try to imbue you with some of the enthusiasm that I have for the natural world and bugs in particular.

Since I first started blogging, almost a decade ago now, it has become increasingly 'sexy' to talk about the environment and the role  insects play within our world. Perhaps at long last the people wielding the power will do the right thing. I actually heard a farmer saying on TV the other day that they had "ignored nature until now, but could do so no longer". There's progress!

Meantime, I shall continue to do my little bit in any way I can...

In my last update I talked about camouflage. Here's another tiny bug that uses this in what seems like  quite an extreme manner. For starters, this Psocid nymph in my photo is only 2mm long max. Does something so small even require camouflage? 

I guess the answer must be yes, or why bother. Here's another photo that shows you what I actually saw before closing in for a macro shot...

Not exactly standing out like a porcupine at a nudist colony is it! And yet it does seem that bugs of this species all do it. I think it might just be confined to the nymphs though.

I'm not certain what it is that they are covering themselves with: an entomologist friend did tell me what he thinks it is, but I think that's just crap!

A Barkfly nymph - possibly Cerobasis guestfalia?

Curious creatures huh? The common name for Psocids is Barkflies, or Book-lice. According to the National Barkfly Recording Scheme: The order Psocoptera is one of the least recorded insect groups. This lack of recording is not because the species are rarely encountered – on the contrary; almost every tree in Britain is likely to be home to some of these creatures and psocids are far more abundant than some insect orders.

In fact, if you are interested in discovering a species new to science, I would say these would be your best bet and the chances quite high.

More strange looking creatures: this time a hoverfly larva. This is what a hoverfly looks like before it becomes the winged adult we all see flying around, all the time thinking it's a wasp. I think this one is probably the Marmalade hoverfly  Episyrphus balleatus. In case you have been wondering; the feeding end is on the right of this photo. Those 'ears' at the other end are neither ears or antennae; they are in fact, put simply, breathing tubes.

My bug finds so far this year have been patchy. One species however that I have seen huge numbers of already is the Hairy Shieldbug (taxonomists please stop renaming bugs, I can't keep up!)

Never have I seen so many gathered together as I have this year. On one local walk recently, I kept seeing these large, green, spiky plants; not sure exactly what they were, maybe wild lettuce or something similar. Anyhow, wherever they occurred, right at the base they formed  little reservoirs where water collected. In each of the plants I looked at there were drowned Hairy Shieldbugs...

Meanwhile, this rather strange looking looper caterpillar was found on willow... 

I was really pleased to find this next plant bug. Freshly moulted too. It's a number of years now since I last saw one.  This is Miris striatus, or as some folk like to call it: The Fine-streaked Bugkin. It's a predatory bug that feeds on aphids and the eggs and larvae of moths etc. Described as 'local' here in the south of the UK.

Miris striatus (moult at bottom)

I must remember when identifying this bug though, there is a really similar one called 'Calocoris quadripuntatus' that has similar patterning, but is just a tad smaller. If that isn't confusing enough, it seems that there is also yet another similar species: 'Rhabdomiris striatellus', however, after further research, it appears that C. quadripuntatus and R. striatellus are one and the same.

Yep! Two names that identify one bug! 

Pictured above is my first sighting of an adult Sawfly. I have seen a number of larvae, but this is the very first adult for 2019. Adult sawflies only live for a couple of weeks: they get their name from the saw-like ovipositor, which the female of the species uses to cut into the surface of leaves, where she then deposits her eggs.

Pentatoma rufipes; A Red-legged Shieldbug

Another first for this year I think. This is probably a mid-instar of the species. When fully grown, the adults have a kind of 80s shoulder pad thing going on. It'll probably be at least another month or so before I spot any mature bugs. 

Adult Pentatoma rufipes from 2016

This...

A bug-eyed caterpillar. At least that's how it appears right? But those black eye-like blobs are not eyes at all. No, the eyes are the small circle of dots at the base of the 'blobs'.