Insects Are Back

After Madeira, there has been a burst of insect sightings in the garden in a number of short, mainly lunchtime sessions.  In fact so many that I can't exactly remember the sequence of what was seen when.

I do know the first thing I noted - and this is now almost three weeks ago - was at least six green lacewings trying to break through the windows of my summer house.  This is a good deal more than I have seen in previous years.

Green Lacewing

A pity the window could have done with a clean...

I can also remember that the day after I got back I helped out clearing a butterfly site at Greenleighton Moss of sitka spruce saplings.  An uneven bog isn't ideal for carting a camera around as well as cutting equipment but we the day was fine and we encountered lots of six spot ladybirds, several lizards, bog rosemary, wild cranberries and right at the end a single adder sunning itself on the trail.

The ladybird theme has continued in the garden and there are couple working on the garlic mustard, often in the company of a green shield bug.

Green Shield Bug

It was at last possible to get a shot of one of the buff-tailed bumblebee queens that have been around since mid-March and these I have now been joined by occasional tree bumblebees which I think are also queens as well as by a couple of queen wasps

Buff-tailed Bumblebee Queen

Tree Bumblebee Queen

Queen Wasp

I was wondering which would be the first non bumblebee to turn up and it was not totally unexpectedly a red mason bee, which have since made their presence felt in increasing numbers, although so far showing no interest in the bug hotel on the summer house wall, preferring the summer house itself.

Red Mason Bee

Meanwhile butterflies also eventually appeared, though it was on a brief ride past Swalwell Cricket Club that I saw my first orange tip.  Eventually a couple more males have turned up in the garden too, plus the first green-veined white.

Orange Tip

Green-veined White

I was for a while a bit surprised that there were no mining bees around especially as I did get a couple of visits from a dark-edged beefly which is one of the key predators.  But after a while I found a chocolate mining bee by accident and not long after a tiny nomad bee, also a predator.

Dark-edged Beefly

Chocolate Mining Bee

Nomad Bee

What kind of nomad bee it was is very hard to assess.  What I can say is I've never seen one so small. I actually mistook it for a wee chafer of some sort.

Also appearing recently was the first bee imitator, the well known common drone fly.

Common Drone Fly

I shouldn't also forget the birds.  Here are a couple of less regular visitors:

Goldfinch

Chaffinch

The chaffinch has now become more regular since the introduction of sunflower hearts into one feeder. here is is clearing up after the greedy siskins who are messy eaters and keep dropping bits of seed onto the lawn.

The goldfinch is considerably less frequent and I'm not sure I've caught one here on camera before.

Butterflies by Bike

I did think while writing my last post a couple of days ago that things could only get better and it proved to be the case.

Anticipating a fearsome 18C forecast I decided to make my weekly trip to Washington Sports Centre by bike on Tuesday, hoping that Cycle Track 7 would yield a few promising spots in spite of some gusty blasts of wind. 

It was only in the Pelton area that I came across a junction with a footpath that was surrounded by dandelions and immediately stopped to have a nose around.  Almost immediately I was elated to catch sight of my first orange tip of the year. During the whole trip I counted eight of them, all males and none of them settling as presumably on the hunt for females. Some of them were extremely small, suggesting under-nourishment. Also spotted later were a single red admiral and a single small tortoiseshell warming themselves on the path.

Anyway it was more the thought of bees that caused me to stop at Pelton and I soon found about five hawthorn mining bees nectaring on the dandelions.  The i-record website where I posted photos of them doesn't believe that an amateur like me can reliably identify a hawthorn mining bee.  Having however  seen them on a guided walk by the River Wansbeck, I'm confident I was right... and anyway there were at least three hawthorns nearby!

On the other side of the footpath, I caught sight of a massive bumblebee on the dandelions.  Dim memories of past years recurred and I reckoned it might be a cuckoo. Research in my trusty bee book suggested that it was indeed a gypsy cuckoo bumblebee though it would have to be admitted that the vestal cuckoo bumblebee is extremely similar.

Hawthorn Mining Bee

Gypsy Cuckoo Bumblebee

As you can see the size difference is fairly apparent. I actually saw some smaller bumblebees with similar markings to the cuckoo but dismissed them as buff-tailed bumblebees without an abdominal yellow stripe, which can sometimes happen.

After wrongly thinking I'd seen a rare ladybird, the next stop was by a bridge nearing Washington, where a good head of campions appeared.  However it was again the dandelions that produced something notable in the form. I think, though again disputed by the i-record website, they were a group of mini miners.

Mini Mini Miners?

Now the only mini miner that is mentioned by the trusty bee book as occurring in this area of the North East is the impunctate mini miner, so it could well be that these are they. However you can see that they are so small that they are almost totally buried by the wee dandelion petals and it is only the occasional antenna sticking up that suggests they might be bees at all.  But wasps also have antennae...

Perhaps inspired by all this I spent a fair bit of time in the garden yesterday.

Buffish mining bee turned up again as did tree bumblebee.  I may also have seen a single red mason bee but the photo I got is too blurry to tell. Slightly more exciting was rescuing a green shield bug from a bucket of water and even more exciting than that was seeing my first nomad bee of the year.

Green Shield Bug

Gooden's Nomad Bee

Again in conflict with i-record, I am confident about identifying Gooden's nomad bee, as several photographs showed no sign of red on the abdomen that would have suggested other locally occurring nomads - and it predates on the buffish mining bee.

Still no sign of butterflies here though.