best part of the day: spider woods

Saltoun Big Wood 23rd July

giant woodwasp, Urocerus gigas

Although it is a massive sawfly (up to 40mm long) I can see why the common name of giant woodwasp has stuck. (It is also called a Giant Horntail.) When I saw this huge beast flying menacingly towards me I assumed it was a hornet. It landed on a tree nearby (piece of luck!) and I stood back a good distance as I didn't want to risk annoying it. When you see the yellow and black you assume wasp/hornet and that anything that size looks absolutely lethal. I suspected it was a giant woodwasp but it would take a certain coolness to walk over and get it on your hand if you have not googled one recently. Of course close up it looks nothing like a hornet, but I was never close up! Great way to start the adventure 20 yards out the (old) car park.

The wind was not behind me for the cycle and I scored a relaxed 80mins for the cycle. I realised I was well off record pace (64mins for 16 hilly miles) about halfway and so left some in the tank for the rest of the day and the cycle home. Since stopping work I have fewer commutes and the bike gets quite dusty these days. It is unusual to do the bike back home 10mins quicker even though the gradient favours the return. Which confirmed the wind direction.

almost perfect conditions

large red damselfly

There was a dude at the first pond. He hadn't been there a long time but hadn't seen much other than common darters and damselflies. Not many hawkers and no black darters. Rather than cramp his style I left to check out things at the other ponds and butterfly alley up the back of the woods. I'd return to the first pond later. There were a few things I was on the lookout for and the next venue was the oak tree stump at the crossroads.

ruby-tailed wasp

At the four-way junction before the large pond on the right, there is an oak tree with a mutant rooty stump above the ground. It is full of holes and crevices into which insects and bugs lay eggs. The parasitic wasps then haunt the place looking for larvae and eggs on which to lay their progeny. It may be an unpleasant business but surprisingly many insects practise this business, including the ruby-tailed (cuckoo) wasp. There was one when I arrived but whenever I approached, it flew off. It returned once or twice but then stayed away. They are most active in bright sunshine and it might have been the lack of sun as well as my presence that caused its disappearance.

Everything up to this point had been taken with the 100~400 lens. However, hoping most of the day would be getting close to bugs and butterflies, I swapped to the 90mm macro. I was glad I'd had the long lens on for the ruby-tailed wasps (and giant woodwasp!) as they were v skittish and would've flown off if I'd tried to get in close with the macro. I was able to crop the images down to a decent size such is the resolution of the G9 but I'd had to stand a metre or 2 back not to scare them off.

burying something or digging it out or trying to do something awful!

Four-banded longhorn beetle - Leptura quadrifasciata

Having been squinting to see what tiny wasps were doing, it was a relief to see this large and handsome longhorn. Often found on dead tree stumps or umbellifors they are cheerful and make great images. Although this one was running about like blazes. I video-ed it to give you an idea. Occasionally it would stop long enough for a photo but then it would be off in a great hurry again. I suspected it might have been a female looking for nooks and crannies to lay eggs into.

video of beetle beetling

priocnemis?

When the longhorn looked like it was disappearing round the back of the tree into shade and away, I offered it a hand onto which it happily ran. I watched it seem to stop, as if noticing it was no longer on a tree but something suspiciously like a predator. It looked closely at my fingertip had a very gentle investigation to confirm its worst fears, then opened its wings and flew off very hastily.

Trypoxylon?

If these are those, they seal their eggs in holes with mud but not before adding a spider which has been paralysed with venom for the developing grub to consume. Other wasps will steal such holes for their own use; emptying out someone else's stash and replacing it with their own. It seems to be a highly contested arena. Which brings quite a few insects to this tree stump.

Eriothrix rufomaculata

common hawker, Aeshna juncea

The larger pond up right of the path had quite a lot of activity. Nearby there were emerald, common and azure damselflies. I spent quite a while on all fours crawling through the long grass, cursing at regular intervals as I edged closer to a target, only for it to fly off.

common damselflies

emerald damselfly

fungi

green-veined white

There was very little going up and round butterfly alley. Around mid-August Peacock collect at the scabious flowers followed by admirals and finally commas. More than you'll see almost anywhere else in Scotland. It is a marvelous sight. However not even the peacocks had emerged as yet. Just beyond the top corner of the woods I sat on a log to have my lunch.

I sat on a fallen trunk for lunch; homemade salad and cheese sandwich.

zinc tank

It was on the bashed old zinc tank that I photographed the female wolf spider with eggsack last trip. This trip there were 2 and I blithely supposed the first was the male and the second carrying the spiderlings on her back was the female. When I saw them there I lay down beside the tank and snuggled in to it. It is not a particularly inviting place to lie down but is imperative to do this so the camera can be rested on something solid (the edge of the tank) to shoot stacked photos. On this occasion the stacked photos did not come out significantly better than the single shots.

mama spider with spiderlings around her abdomen

stacked image

single shot at f22

This spider video is a bit disappointing. Not sure why the depth of field is so narrow - I had been shooting stills on f22 immediately before and afterwards but maybe the lack of light forced the video to use a different aperture? It shows the spiders but won't win any prizes!

toad hiding on toad-coloured mud

green leaf-hopper - Cicadella viridis

Sicus ferrugineus, bee-grabber

sawfly
(maybe Athalia cordata or similar)

marmalade hoverfly

drone fly

the oak tree stump

wolf spider

lacewing

4-spot chaser

Graham M

I bumped into Graham when I returned to the first pond. He encouraged me to consider joining the Edinburgh Photographic Society of which he is Competition Secretary. We chatted about cameras and gear. He was using a micro four thirds Olympus and had the same macro lens as I was using, as well as the 150~600. There were some aging 4-spot chasers, emerald damselflies and common hawkers but nothing more than that. I spent a short while trying to catch the hawkers on the wing. Initially not much luck until one came over for a look at me and hovered right in front.

My previous bridge camera was frustrating for focussing on the backgroud pond when this happened but the new camera can be encouraged to bring the focus forward if it is not seeing the dragonfly. I did this and got some decent shots which didn't even need to be cropped much at all. It made me appreciate how other people have been getting flying shots of dragonflies before now when I struggled to do similar. Some people reckon it's not about the kit as much as the photographer which to some extent is true. However the more modern cameras with really good animal detection focussing and similar make the job considerably easier. And it does help to have honed skills on much less sophisticated kit.