Almost Like the Good Old Days

 Wednesday 20^th May 2026, The Isle, Bicton

Our venue this week was return visit to a large, mainly arable farm within a meander of the River Severn, close to Bicton. The farm's practice is to reduce reliance on bagged fertiliser, improve soil health naturally and benefit the natural environment. The hot weather which we are experiencing as I type this had not yet arrived, but the day was nevertheless characterised by very pleasant sunshine and temperatures. What a day! Reader, it was almost like a May day from times past, with constant interest, abundant (by modern standards, anyway) life and hardly a dull moment. One result of this is a bumper crop of photos which, even after some fairly savage culling, has left considerably more than I would usually feature.

 
The narrative begins in the car park, a venue which often provides interest. Almost the first thing that was spotted was this fine Common Clubtail, fresh from the encircling Severn.

Several other dragons and damsels were also present, perhaps the nicest being a Red-eyed Damselfly,  which will have come from the Isle Pool rather than the river.

The car park produced a variety of other finds, giving a hint of what was to come. This hoverfly has been christened the Snouted Duck Fly by someone with a vivid imagination. Its face can’t be seen in the below photo, but it does have quite the schnoz. More scientifically, it is Eurimyia (Anasimyia) lineata.

Another portent of what was to come were these mating 14-spot ladybirds. There was a lot of this sort of thing going on. Perhaps this report should have an Advisory: Parental Guidance warning attached to it…

And indeed the results of similar endeavours were also to be seen. This is a 24-spot Ladybird larva.

Many Lepidoptera larvae were also seen over the day. This was the first, a Clouded Drab larva, preparing to shed its skin (note the bulging head).

On arrival in the car park I had barely got out of the car when something hit me in the chest. It was a longhorn beetle of some sort, possibly Rhagium bifasciatum (Two-banded Longhorn). It zoomed off again before I could focus on it and was never seen again. But over the course of the day we saw a further seven longhorn beetle species, which feels like a record for us. This was the first, a Tobacco-coloured Longhorn, Alosterna tabacicolor. 

We finally managed to extricate ourselves from the car park and set off along a lane leading down to the river and thence to several large meadows. Barely had we started along the lane when this splendid creature appeared.

It is a snakefly. We see them only very infrequently  so they are always a subject of much ogling when one appears. This one is a male Phaeostigma notata. A second one (same species) appeared later in the day, amounting to about 5 years’ worth of snakefly sightings at normal rates!

Back to longhorn beetles and here’s more of that PG-rated behaviour again, this time from a pair of Wasp Beetles. We saw a lot of these, all over the areas we visited.

Also very common were (appropriately enough) Common Grammoptera (Grammoptera ruficornis).

And the remaining longhorn beetle species, beginning with an excellent sight: Lime Longhorn, Stenostola  dubia, a local species, not often encountered.

Stenostola dubia

Variable Longhorn, Stenocorus meridianus

Rufous-shouldered Longhorn, Anaglyptus mysticus

And finally the worst photo ever to appear in a blog post. But it was all I could manage before it did a Geronimo into the undergrowth, never to be seen again. 

Golden-bloomed Grey Longhorn, Agapanthia villosoviridescens

This view looks back at the point where we had entered the meadows from the lane. The river is on the left of picture, hidden behind young willows. The wooden building made an excellent base, and lunch spot!

Another Odonata river specialist was much in evidence here - Banded Demoiselle. 

photo: Nigel Cane-Honeysett

At this point in proceedings, observations started coming in so thick and fast that any sort of coherent narrative becomes almost impossible, so I am mostly going to resort to compiling the images by species  group, starting with some beetles.

10-spot Ladybird

Red-headed Cardinal Beetles

 

Black-headed Cardinal Beetle. photo: Nigel Cane-Honeysett

soldier beetle, Cantharis rustica. Photo: Nigel Cane-Honeysett

Some weevils:

Curculio venosus. Photo: Nigel Cane-Honeysett

Phyllobius pomaceus. Photo: Nigel Cane-Honeysett

a spider weevil, Exomias aranaeiformis. Photo: Nigel Cane-Honeysett

Britain has two species of leaf beetles in the Gastrophysa genus. We saw both. This is G. polygoni  

While this is the more familiar G. viridula, aka the Green Dock Beetle. 

And these are Green Dock Beetle eggs (on dock, naturally). 

But you will note that some are smaller and whiter than the rest. That’s because they belong to someone else, a species of hoverfly in fact. The florid naming committee has been at work again and christened it the Black-footed Bristleside, otherwise known as Parasyrphus nigritarsus. This hoverfly predates the eggs and larvae of various leaf beetles. As an adult it is not often seen and is in any case not easy to separate from other related species. The best way to identify it is by doing just this - finding its eggs, laid in among those of its unfortunate prey species. Green Dock Beetles are a particularly easy target, both for fly and entomologist. We were fortunate enough to find not only eggs but  also a couple of  larvae, already well through devouring their clutch of beetle eggs.

Staying with Diptera, here is one of the day’s most notable finds. A county second in fact: the picture-winged fly Oxyna parientina. 

photo: Keith Fowler

This next fly was also notable - our Dipterist thinks it is the first time it has been collected on a Joy of Wildlife outing. And yet it was, as he says “ubiquitous in my youth”. It is a Lesser Housefly! 

Fannia  canicularis. Photo: Nigel Jones

Finally, for the flies,  another good spot: Antheris ibis, the Yellow-legged Water Snipefly.

Time for another scenic view into the main meadow area including, in the foreground, a huge patch of Silverweed... 

photo: Keith Fowler

…before we move to Lepidoptera, including several larvae:

Glyphipterix simpliciella. Photo: Nigel Cane-Honeysett

 

Nemophora degeereella

Plum Tortrix, Hedya pruiniana. Photo: Nigel Cane-Honeysett

Small Yellow Underwing

Timothy Tortrix larva

Small Quaker larva

Dun-bar larva

Satellite larva

Purple Hairstreak larva

And an egg 

Small Copper egg

Next, Orthoptera. All tiny nymphs at this stage.

Field Grasshopper

Roesel's  Bush-cricket

Oak Bush-cricket

Now Hemiptera, beginning with, as our Hemipterist puts it “My first cuckoo of the year”. That is, cuckoo-spit, produced by the nymph of a species of froghopper. 

photo: Keith Fowler

Dock Bugs

Forest Bug nymph. Photo: Nigel Cane-Honeysett

Rhabdomiris striatellus

A few Hymenoptera…. 

mason bee. Photo: Nigel Cane-Honeysett

Nomada fabriciana. Photo: Nigel Cane-Honeysett

sawfly larva, Periclista pubescens

A mayfly 

Green Drake, Ephemera danica. Photo: Nigel Cane-Honeysett

And a caddisfly 

Welshman's Button, Sericostoma personatum. Photo: Nigel Cane-Honeysett

Before we (almost) conclude with a selection of spiders.

a cucumber green spider. Photo: Nigel Cane-Honeysett

Tetragnatha extensa. Photo: Nigel Cane-Honeysett

Gibberania gibbosa. Photo:  Nigel Cane-Honeysett

Nursery Web Spider. Photo: Nigel Cane-Honeysett

By the time some of us had completed a circuit of the largest field, the temperature had risen to the point where an unspoken agreement was reached to begin the return to our vehicles.

As we retreated, a pair of Mute Swans whistled overhead. Another lovely sight in a day filled with them.

Many thanks to the owners for allowing access to this exceptional site.

   
 
Photographs © the author except as noted.