Over-excitement in the undergrowth

As we reached that time of year known as Mid-Summer's Day, it almost felt like the beginning of a period of pleasant and warm weather. We've been here before though, mesmerised by May and then frozen by February June.

As seems to be the way of late, the Met Office struggle with guessing our weather, at least I hope they're just guessing because the resultant predictions aren't worth the price of a mains cable for their super computer. It could be said, this isn't the Met Office's finest hour.

Still, come hail or shine, it is flight season for the winged jewels which so entrance me. A trip to a nearby pool (hmmm, still not dug your pond then, NaHaL?), brought the happy sight of dozens of damselflies: many energetic and mature adult Large Reds and a similar number of  pale-coloured wraith-like Blue-tails making their maiden flights. The Large Reds must have been approaching their peak, the males defending small patches of vegetation at the water's edge and being craven in their desire for females. Conversely, the Blue-tails were just beginning to emerge in numbers and desperate to leave behind the carnage of the pool for a few days until they reached maturity themselves. It wasn't a fair fight to be honest, Large Reds awash with whatever passes for testosterone in a damselfly and Blue-tails making their inaugural flights, as tentative as your author would be in similar circumstances.

As I said, carnage.

With no hint of the impending drama, a Large Red basking on a Dock leaf as we approached the pool

A pair of mating Large Reds, with another male trying to muscle in

A Large Red brought down a Blue-tail and seemed intent on eating it 

There's a lot of protein in the flight muscles of the thorax

Eventually, the Large Red gave up, and I inspected the unfortunate Blue-tail for injuries. The bite marks can clearly be seen on the side of the thorax. Whether it was a definite feeding attempt by the Large Red or simply the result of too much pent-up sexual tension, I don't know.

We moved on to another site, in search of some calm as much as for odes. The old Stromness Waterworks is no longer used as a reservoir, but has some vegetated margins which are favourable habitat for damselflies. However, the first insect of note we found was a water beetle, which had climbed to the top of a Horsetail stem. I didn't try to ID it to species.

The Hogweed inflorescences were just bursting into bloom, and attracting all manner of insects. This particular plant was mainly covered in ichneumon wasps (I think).

Whilst I pottered ahead, trying to keep a running tally of damselfly numbers, Megan found this strange creature. At first, I wondered if it might be a hoverfly, but ObsIdentify suggested that it was a thick-headed fly, which I thought was a bit impolite and a harsh judgement as we'd only just met. This group of flies lay their eggs in adult bumblebees, wasps or hoverflies, and their larvae consume the unfortunate host from within. This explained the weirdly-shaped abdomen, as the thick-headed fly needs to lever apart the plates of the host's exoskeleton to lay its egg. A related species has an egg shaped like a harpoon which is fired through the exoskeleton of some unfortunate hymenopteran.

So here is an insect, striking in appearance, with a black and white striped body and coloured wings, with a tin opener for an abdomen and a life cycle destined to be a sci-fi movie, and all we can call it is 'thick-headed'?! Maybe we used up all our creative juices naming the moths?

This individual is Physocephala nigra, which I think translates as Black Stubborn Head. The species is present in Orkney, but we'd not seen one before, so we were happy to make its acquaintance before it departed to spoil some bumblebee's day.

A bit further along the bank of the reservoir, Megan came up trumps again, with a mass of tiny caterpillars gorging on some Meadowsweet.

These are a very early instar of the Emperor Moth, which will feed all Summer, over-Winter as slightly larger larvae, then continue growing next Spring to become huge green caterpillars with black bands and pink tufts of hair. Next Summer they will pupate and emerge as adult moths in Spring 2026. Don't worry, most of them will be eaten by other things before then!

So, what was I up to all this time?

Trying to photograph this little lady, that's what. 

We found about ten Blue-tailed Damselflies, a mixture of males and females, immature and mature, although there was no obvious signs of them having emerged at the reservoir site. Walking back to the car across the heather moorland, we encountered lots more wildlife, some of which hung around long enough for a photo.

A Carder Bumblebee, probably the Common variety

Frog!

Some rather zingy Red Clover

This past week, there have been some lovely days (a big shout out to Monday, which was so nice it might have been THE day of Summer) and some not so nice days (yes, Friday, I'm looking at you) where I had to cancel work due to high winds and lashing rain. In the garden, highlight of the week was a brief sighting of a potter wasp, probably Ancistrocerus scoticus, which landed momentarily on an Ox-eye Daisy, then disappeared before I could bring a camera to bear. If, before Election Day, you wish to avoid yet more party political guff on the telly, might I suggest sitting in the garden for a while, staring at passing insects. It really isn't time wasted.