Natural highs and lows

The weather in Orkney has finally improved a little, almost like it is Summer. Which means it is insect time! A Large Red Damselfly at Happy Valley (with less crime and drama), Stenness   Tipula maxima , rather a large cranefly at Happy Valley, Stenness Cheilosia illustrata, a hoverfly at Lyness, Hoy A pool by the track to Wee Fea, Hoy. Home to many damselflies Three small holes in a sandy bank, each home to a larva of the Green Tiger Beetle. The heads (ok, jaws) of the larvae are visible, waiting for some poor unfortunate invertebrate to wander by. Wee Fea A Four-spotted Chaser which Megan found at Wee Fea Whilst there are historic records of this species at this site, we had never seen one in this location before Prime Odonata habitat, Wee Fea A female Common Blue Damselfly, Wee Fea An atrocious photo of (possibly) a Thistle Root Borer moth, Wee Fea A pair of Red-necked Footmans... er... Footmen... er... Feetmans... er... Podpersons. And yes, they are propagating the sp...

Next weekend, Megan and I are leading a walk for the Orkney Field Club. During the Winter, we had blithely volunteered to put on some events looking for hairy caterpillars, and this will be the first one. This walk will be on the island of Hoy, between Lyness and Wee Fea, a gentle uphill climb with several different habitats en route.  Last weekend, we thought that we had better carry out a recce to see if there was any of our target species to be found.  Well, we did find a few caterpillars but, wow, we found a lot of everything else. Bees and Wasps A male Tormentil Mining Bee, Adrena tarsata (thanks to JW for the ID) Also a Tormentil Mining Bee, possibly a female A Spider-hunting wasp with prey A Mason Wasp Ancistrocerus oviventris busy building pots to house its larvae A Ruby-tailed Wasp which parasitises the larvae of Mason Bees Beetles A Green Tiger Beetle A small hole in the ground was the only clue that here is the burrow of a Green Tiger Beetle larva. Like its parents,...

Did I allude to a lazy morning in a recent blog? Well, it happened. One of those days when one's get-up-and-go has got up and gone. Umpteen mugs of tea did not bump-start my mojo, but hey, we were on holiday, so it's all good. Instead, we eventually sauntered down the hill to the Nethy House cafe for an early lunch, before tromping off into the woods for an afternoon of wildlife watching. En route to the cafe, a Red Admiral and a Small Tortoiseshell were nectaring on a roadside bush. We managed a few photos of the former, but a passing car spooked the latter before we could commit it to pixels. Still, these were our first flutters of the year, and it felt like an energy boost for us too. After an excellent lunch at the cafe, we wandered back over the eponymous bridge, past the village shop and followed a sign for the Speyside Way. This path took us by some sports pitches, then between the Millennium pools where, in a month or so, there will be loads of damselflies and dragonfli...

Whilst it has not seen such high temperatures as places further south, the recent warm spell in Orkney has been plenty hot enough for me. Outside work was carried out prudently with only short stints of exposure to the sun, although sitting out in the garden for every meal of the day was pretty special. Lack of rainfall is now the main concern, and from a personal perspective it is worrying how many dragonfly pools are very low or have already disappeared.  But let's appreciate a week's lovely weather before we become too gloomy at the prospect of climate change. A relaxing day spent in and around the garden was notable for the number of insects gathering on a Cotoneaster bush: honey bees; bumblebees (White-tailed, Common Carder, Gypsy Cuckoo); hoverflies ( Rhingia campestris, Leucozona lucorum, Helophilus pendulus, Sericomyia silentis , several Eristalis spp); at least one species of social wasp (Red wasp); and a couple of mason wasps ( Ancistrocerus oviventris and A. scotic...