Natural highs and lows

It's still Summer in Orkney! I know this because it is raining. Vertically. So what better time to have a brief catch-up on wildlifey happenings in this neck of the woods since the last post nine days ago (and definitely not just because I was called out for not having blogged for over a week. Honest). Amongst all the hoverflies, bumblebees, social wasps, butterflies and moths nectaring in the garden, we have been keeping an eye out for the occasional potter wasp. This isn't just because they're wonderful little solitary wasps, but also because they're stalked by the rarely seen (let alone photographed) Ruby-tailed wasp, a parasitoid of the potters, who lays her egg alongside the potter's egg, and her larva consumes the host egg or larva and all its stored food resources. We haven't spotted a Ruby-tail so far. On the subject of social wasps,  oddly, they're the ones that folk think of as antisocial come late Summer. Stocky Mason Wasp, Ancistrocerus oviventri...

OK, I have to admit, I needed a lot of help decoding what this chart was showing, as it was well outside my area of expertise. For a start, what's the flashing yellow LED sign mean? And is 19 degrees the angle at which to best view the LED? Or is it the declination to the celestial equator? I am not even sure that this sort of info should be in the public domain, it could cause widespread panic and disorder. Meanwhile, outside GraemeWorld, the rest of the populace were having a fabulous time, thank you very much. The heat was certainly favouring us watching insects, especially as this shrub in the garden of our accommodation was teeming with them: bumblebees, butterflies, hoverflies, moths and a squillion other tiny flies. Green Hairstreak butterfly This was a hoverfly that was new to me. The folk at UK Hoverflies identified it as one of the Genus Didea (to get to species level I would need to check the colour of the halteres) Continuing with the insect-y theme, the next day saw a ...