I don't mind the wet weather, it's fine by me...

It's still a case of trying to dodge the rain to photograph and record invertebrates for now, as the sunshine of a warm March declined into one of the wettest April months on record.
 May has begun in similar fashion: but on one of the few sunny mornings we've had I ventured out to check local ponds for damselflies and was pleased to find several had emerged at each of the ponds.

A Large Red Damselfly

Different weather conditions suits different creatures of course and I've noticed this year that whereas previous years have seen the tops of nettles becoming home to weevils, they seem to be full of earwigs now. Something to do with the dampness no doubt.

CLICK ANY PHOTO FOR A LARGER VIEW

This earwig, pictured above wasn't actually on nettle but unusually on a grass stem, overhanging the pond where I found the damselfly. It must have been there all night as it was soaked.

I took another shot from a different angle that had bluebells in the background and I quite like the effect.....

The other observation I've made is that some critters just don't seem to mind, or perhaps they're not even aware of, the bad weather. If you're brave enough to venture out with the camera, or perhaps in my case, stupid enough! There's always something to be found and photographed.It may not be what you were looking for-most times it isn't, but I can usually find something.

This attractive little beetle was sitting a'top a large grass seed-head and was making no attempt to shelter from the rain.

'Malachius bipustulatus' is the scientific name for this one, I can never remember that though (as with most of these complicated names) and so I prefer it's common name of Malachite Beetle.

Easily recognised by the twin red spots at it's rear and reasonably easy to see, even though it's only around 5-6mm by virtue of the fact it has the bright, metallic green elytra.

Malachite Beetle face-on close up

The other creature that loves all this wet weather of course is the humble snail. I've not seen any figures yet that say this is going to be a good year for them but if the numbers I've been seeing are anything to go by, they probably are.

The first shot here is a natural light photo, hence the paler, more subdued colours. As you can see in the photograph below the addition of flash, especially on a dull day, can result in a more saturated image. I possibly overdid the flash a tad here too as it's close to being blown. I wanted to share this shot though and frankly, couldn't be arsed to 'PS' the image!

Just hangin'

Returning to Coleoptera (Beetles) for a second. On yet another foray into what was once a woodland walk, but now resembles a paddy-field, I got my first sighting of a big red beetle that usually turns up in May each year. This is the Cardinal Beetle (Pyrochroa serraticornis) that at about 15mm plus, is treble the size of the malachite beetle.

Sometimes called a red-headed cardinal beetle, for obvious reasons. There is also another very similar beetle that has a black head. I don't think I need to tell you what that one gets called?

A dorsal view of the cardinal beetle

On one of the numerous days when outside photography was not an option, I decided to do some work on tidying the garden shed (again) and when moving things around, out from behind a length of wood crawled this vine weevil.

As I'm constantly being told, vine weevils are very destructive in the garden and to be avoided at all costs.

Even so, I couldn't bring myself to destroy such a wonderful looking creature and my view is that there's a place for everything in this world and that includes vine weevils.

I just hope that it's happy in its new home.......next door's garden!

I'll leave you with that thought-until the next time.....

A change of plan...

I had intended this blog entry to be about my visit to Thornden Woods but at long last a few dragonflies have started to appear and so I thought perhaps Thornden will wait for another day, whilst I share some shots of Odonata.

Click on any picture to enlarge.

This Common Darter as it's name suggests is a commonplace dragonfly but this year has been exceptional for the lack of most species locally. This is a male.

A full profile view showing the curved abdomen.

A dorsal view really shows off those fabulous wings too.

Our summer in this corner of the world hasn't been anything to write home about (which is just as well because I haven't been anywhere!). Today must have been reasonably warm though because I saw a dragonfly exhibiting a fabulous behaviour pattern that only takes place in warm sunshine.


It's known as 'obelisking' and involves the dragonfly standing in a head-down position, with it's abdomen pointing skywards. The purpose seems to be to stop the dragonfly from over-heating.

'Obelisk' position.

The dragonfly pictured above is of the same species as the first pictures but is a female, as you can see these are a lot duller in colour, as are the immature males, so much so that they can easily be confused with the females.


Although those wings look very delicate, the muscles that control them (which by the way, they can control independently) are not; at full speed most dragonflies can reach speeds of 40 miles per hour. They can hover, fly backwards, shoot vertically up or down and turn within their own body length, making them superb hunters.

A Common Darter on bracken.

And so at long last some dragonflies are to be seen locally. Although I've now seen a handful or so, they have all been the same species. I've had a few fleeting glimpses of other, larger 'Hawker' dragons as well but no close-encounters yet. It'll happen though, I'm sure of it and when it does, you can be sure I'll be there with my camera to record it.

Incidentally, dragonflies have quite a connection with stoneflies; evolution-wise stoneflies are thought to have appeared very soon after dragonflies and as we know, they are amongst the oldest of all insects.

It's thought that stoneflies may be represent an early stage in the evolution of insect flight as they have wings but rarely fly, even when they do take to the air, it's more a case of opening their wings and waiting to be lifted by a gust of wind.

 I'll no doubt be doing a piece on stoneflies next spring, for now though, here's a photo taken during spring of 2011.

A Stonefly.

Finally for now, you may by now be thinking that I've been 'messin' with the blog design/layout again?

Well a combination of frustration at several things that have gone wrong/astray that have been beyond my control, and I've also failed to find a 'fix' for, alongside advice from 'blogger' and other bloggers that I've spoken to has meant that the general consensus seems to be 'keep it simple' and there's less to go wrong, after all it is a free service.

And so that's what I've done, simplified it all and let's hope that from now on it all runs like clockwork and there are no more disappearances or glitches.

Until the next time then...