Tea, entomology and more tea

Brickyard Farm and Farfield Meadows, Wednesday 12th September

Four of us arrived at our hosts' splendid residence in lovely September sunshine. Before any serious investigations of their garden & fields commenced, they insisted on plying us with tea & coffee. Our resistance was minimal; some at least did attempt to give an impression of entomologising with one hand whilst holding their beverage with the other!

Photograph: David Williams

Refreshments over, our Arachnologist produced his latest piece of equipment, a pond-net. He had his eye on the garden pond, and the quest for a water-spider, a species, uniquely in Britain, which makes for itself an air-filled 'diving bell' from which to sally forth beneath the pond's surface. Much trawling with the net mainly produced copious quantities of mud, which made finding anything else rather difficult, and no spiders were forthcoming. After leaving the mud to settle for a while, a strange beast did eventually appear from the murk & cause much speculation as to its identity.  Subsequently, the author's ancient Observers Book of Pond Life identified it as an alderfly larva, an odd-looking beast indeed.

Photograph: David Williams

The most numerous (or at least obvious) invertebrate in the grassland was the cranefly Tipula padulosa. 

Photograph: David Williams

Legions of spiked shieldbugs were also enjoying the sunshine, sunbathing low in the vegetation. Worker wasps, their colonial duties coming to an end, feasted instead on the ripe blackberries in the hedgerows. 

Photograph: David Williams

A red kite circled lazily over us. 

Moving on into an area known as 'Seven Acre Field', we encountered several friendly horses, who peered into our beating trays in an interested & affable way. They deserved a photo, but were too large for my macro lens, so sadly went unrecorded. A gorse shieldbug was prised from a gorse bush. Feeling that lunchtime was imminent, we decided a less horse-filled environment was called for, so moved to the next field. Here we pitched camp next to a large dung heap before unwrapping our sandwiches. Yum! During our visit last year, we found lesser earwigs, the money-spider Ostearius melanopygius & various pseudoscorpions in said heap. The first two were duly re-found and recorded, though the pseudoscorpions escaped us on this occasion.

A wooden fence divided this field from an adjacent, ungrazed / unmown one. Examination of this fence, which was in full sun, produced various harvestmen and, oddly, two sunbathing walnut orb-weaver spiders (Nuctenea umbratica). This is a strictly nocturnal species; what it was doing sitting brazenly sunning itself is a mystery.

Photograph: David Williams

Leaning over the fence and sweeping the long grass with a bat-detector, a male long-winged conehead (a bush cricket) was detected in full song.

We decided to have a brief foray into the adjacent SWT reserve (Farfields Meadow). Sadly, it had been cut in July & now had a flock of sheep nibbling it further, and entomological interest was minimal. We gave up and returned to our hosts' abode, where we were further plied with tea, coffee and biscuits, consumed whilst sitting in their lovely garden in warm sunshine. Bliss! An examination of their flower borders revealed various butterflies and bees nectaring on the flowers, including small copper and painted lady, and several Halictus rubicundus, a species of solitary bee. 

Halictus rubicundus & honeybee - Photograph: David Williams

Eventually, and with some reluctance, we forced ourselves up off the garden chairs & made our ways home.  

Some other photographs from the day: 

Corizus hyaoscami

Photograph: David Williams

Dolycoris baccarum

Photograph: David Williams

Eupeodes luniger

Photograph: David Williams

Phalangium opilio