Hunting For Butterflies

A lot has been going on!..

About ten days ago I took a last trip to Pathhead Nature Reserve for a late attempt to find the dingy skipper.

It was unsuccessful although I did see large numbers of meadow brown, good numbers of small skipper plus a fair few small heath and a couple of (I think) six-spot burnet moths, most of which were to be duplicated in subsequent trips elsewhere.  A notable absentee was common blue and perhaps the strangest sighting was a common carder bee that was so heavily bleached by the sun that it was almost indistinguishable.

Small Heath

Common Carder (bleached)

In the preceding fortnight there had been several sightings of patchwork leafcutter bees and always on the same flower which I'm not able to name but it was an obvious favourite.

Patchwork Leafcutter Bee

This turned out to be the start of a good for finding butterflies...

Busy with the Bees...

I would never predicted that the first butterfly I caught on camera this year would be a green hairstreak, but that's exactly what happened.  A week ago on Tuesday I made a bit of an energetic bike ride to Dipton Woods near Corbridge, thinking it might be too early in a wet May and too late in the day for much chance of success.

On arrival the sun was still pretty warm in my favoured hot spot and I was delighted to find that a suspected brown moth in fact turned green on landing. One sighting only compared to last year's bonanza but nevertheless...  An added bonus was that, after much stalking in the same area, I managed to capture my first ever bilberry mining bee.

Green Hairstreak

Bilberry Mining Bee

This for me summoned the final arrival of Spring. 

The addition of a small bug hotel on the summerhouse has marked a major increase in the number of red mason bees in my garden.  On sunny days there can be a dozen or more.  Unfortunately the bug hotel is located immediately above a bucket that has been used to catch dripping water from the summerhouse roof and a few have contrived to fall into it.

The one on the right obviously wanted to know how long it'd been in there...

Red Mason Bee

Wet Red Mason Bee

In spite of the lack of attractors this year, male and female orange tip both visited my garden a few days later and a peacock was spotted sunning itself on the shed roof.

Orange Tip

Female Orange Tip

A pair of orange tips gave a mating display shortly afterwards but it was bees that have continued to provide the highlights.

I've noticed a few garden bumblebees, possibly the same queen roaming around and finally managed to prove it, though it rarely stayed completely still for very long.

Garden Bumblebee

More surprisingly an early bumblebee was found in recovery mode on the summerhouse.  I've seen them before in the field but not in the garden.

Early Bumblebee

On Wednesday a red-tailed bumblebee queen was on the prowl, but never settled at all over a full fifteen minutes surveying for nesting sites.

Also on Wednesday, by a complete chance, I caught sight of a patchwork leafcutter bee that promptly managed to ensnare itself in a spider's web.

Patchwork Leafcutter Bee

If you expand the image, you can just about see the stomach hairs on this female, used for storing pollen.

Nomad bees are still visiting in fair numbers and I finally had a bit of success with identification.  It looks very much like this one is Marsham's Nomad Bee, though the whole area of nomad identification is a bit of a quagmire.

Marsham's Nomad Bee

This may not be the end of the nomad quest.  I'm sure there's a smaller one turning up that may be different but so far has proved too nippy to get into the bug box....

Still, it's amazing what you can see in even a relatively small garden when it comes to bees!

New Species Seen

Last Saturday I took a chance on the weather improving for a trip to Campfield Marsh in Cumbria with my son and fiancee in the hope of seeing a marsh fritillary.

Unfortunately the sun refused to shine but it was still a pleasant walk in a wetland environment with some different flora and fauna.

For a while I thought the only sign of butterfly or moth would be a drinker moth caterpillar but on coming to a woodland edge I noticed a moth that I later saw a few times - an aptly named common wave.

Drinker Moth Caterpillar

Common Wave

Further into the wood I saw a couple of light-coloured bumblebees I didn't recognise visiting foxgloves.  It was frustrating trying to identify them but I think from video evidence they were moss carder bees.

Moss Carder Bee

There were also a few birds around, notably a little egret, a single speckled wood butterfly and a strange growth on a tree.

Still after marsh fritillaries we dropped in for a shorter walk at Finglandrigg Wood with no more success but I did see the first definite meadow brown of the summer on one of many common spotted orchids and another bee imitator, this time a bumblebee hoverfly... if I've got it right.

Meadow Brown

Bumblebee Hoverfly

Back at home the day after I spotted to spot a patchwok leafcutter bee, no great rarity but a first for me.

Patchwork Leafcutter Bee

The jay is still  appearing from time to time but is very shy and disappears as soon as I move around in the house.

Jay

As you can see, s/he's about to disappear again.

I thought that the baby woodpecker was now feeding independently but there was a recent visit yesterday when the parent bird obliged, I think with some reluctance.

Woodpeckers

This Tuesday another butterfly target went unachieved as, in spite of reasonable weather, I couldn't see any sign of the white letter hairstreak at Bywell Bridge but there were a couple more first seasonal spottings when I saw a small skipper by the Tyne as well as three ringlets.  The latter may have been fresh on the wing and weren't settling but I have seen a couple since.

Small Skipper