graveyard shift

 

We had a longer run planned for the 3rd so I kept it local for Wednesday 2nd Oct. and had another Warriston wander. The sun shone and the place seemed alive with insects enjoying the balmy weather before Winter closes everything down. There was a brief appearance from a red admiral sunbathing on the walls of the crypts but nothing more spectacular: no birds of prey or woodpeckers. I also spent a lot of the trip looking down at bugs, into the undergrowth and on gravestones so there could easily have been a few exotic birds going about undetected. You can't cover all the bases simultaneously.

I entered the cemetery via St Marks Bridge, an unofficial clamber. Someone has piled garden-based rubbish there more recently, presumably in order to disuade folk from using this entry. It is still possible to climb over it so I do. First up I checked the feeder (the only one so far to survive attacks from the squirrels). I put some peanuts in it last trip and they were all gone. I won't fill it right up because the squirrels are the primary suspects and there is still plenty food for them on the trees. I may look into some peppery stuff you can add to bird feeders which the birds don't notice but it discourages the squirrels. 

speckled wood
by far the most numerous butterfly now resident in Warriston

lots of wasps everywhere

When I saw this adult froghopper (Philaenus spumarius) I realised previous ones may not have been fully grown as this one was bigger than previous. (The females are bigger.) And I always get the vibe of an upturned boat. It wasn't huge but large enough to get a decent photo of, which I nearly failed to do as it kept moving off to be out of the direct light. It has a pitted surface similar to a shieldbug and looks to be fashioned from similar materials!

red admiral at the crypts

fly leaf

As if offering itself up for comparison to the froghopper, this hawthorn shieldbug was sat on the end of a leaf waiting to be photographed. I only just managed to get some shots of those disco ball eyes. 

Okay this orange job was quite unusual and I only got a couple of pics before it departed. Google lens says Thricops diaphanus which doesn't even appear in the Big Book of Insects. So I am not convinced. Although it looks like it.  Any input welcome. Can't be that many orange flies about with darker heads. Not exactly a looker but individual enough to have caught my attention.

random hoverfly (see below)

I have just been reading parts of the new Hoverflies book on ID-ing the wee bastards. While I don't blame the book so much as the flies, it is hard not to want to kill the messenger who delivers such bad news. Here are some choice excerpts which describe exactly the sort of problem I anticipated before the book arrived.

"Yellow-and-black banded hoverflies in the genera Epistrophe, Eupeodes, Syrphus, Parasyrphus and Megasyrphus are consistently misidentified. See pages 128-130 for a guide to their identification."

You DO NOT want to see pages 128-130. Apparently the most reliable way of telling Syrphus from other yellow-and-black genera is the presence of "upstanding hairs on the upperside of the squama". (Natch!) However they "cannot be seen on live animals or in photographs." So you can really only be certain once you have killed the fly. Which sounds a bit like a witch trial or the methodology of Guantanamo Bay, neither of which come with a glowing revue on tripadvisor.

Other really helpful tips: length and colour of body hair. A certain vein on the wing which goes from not quite straight, to having a slight dip. And the face, face on, which (in females) goes from dusted, to half black and half yellow, to (mostly) yellow. What it does in males and how you tell males from females must be another chapter. Also "hind leg colour may act as a clue but it is difficult to be conclusive." No shit sherlock.  

The upshot of all this means that on this blog I foresee a lot more use of the blanket term hoverfly and a lot fewer Latin words underneath photos of yellow-and-black hoverflies. Or the species names will be used with a large amount of sarcasm, which, like the flies themselves, will be indiscernible. And you will never be able to see what little upstanding hair remains on my squama, should there be any, while I am alive.

harlequin ladybird

I saw this speckled wood (f) hunting around the ground but as I moved closer it flew up into this attractive holly. I had to wait until it decided to return to ground level - it looked fresh as anything and worth waiting for. Eventually it returned and sat on a carefully chosen leaf. I was reluctant to chase it back up into the nearest tree so had to crawl slowly across damp grass and settle for pics on the leathery leaf. You can see the bloom of youth in the purple-blue sheen across the wings. A moment later it was off.

panhandling for peanuts

There were lots of insects in the air and one cut across right in front of me. It seemed to land on or fly past a gravestone which I went over to examine. I found this Angle Shades moth. (It seemed far too sleepy to have crossed my path a moment ago so maybe just a lucky find.) Not quite as pristine an example as one we saw in early May here. But worth scooping onto a leaf and doing a quick photo sesh in the sunlight before returning to the leaf litter.

Batman Hoverfly Myathropa florea - number 5 in the hoverfly charts!
('Batman' symbol between its wings)

the crow twins - propah gangstas

are all wasps as hairy as this?

medetara

Helina

Tipula paludosa
not sure if that is the correct species but it sounds lovely

aphid (common horsetail?)

This incident was notable for being very small and might be a hoverfly larva eating an aphid. Some sort of legless larva anyway. If hoverfly, then they tend to be blind. You can see the internal parts at the front end moving in the video below. 

video clip, click twice

ladybird about to depart

Just near James Simpson Young there were some yellow flowers (Helianthus?) catching the last of the afternoon sunshine, attracting the attentions of hoverflies. They were of the Eupeodes or Syrphus sort maybe, with marmalade interlopers (thank goodness for recognisable ones). A lovely finale to the afternoon.

marmalade hoverfly

Japanese anemone

hovers in sunlight

This video should really have been posted with the last trip to the botanics where most of it was shot. However I forgot to make it at the time and only put these hoverfly clips together a while afterwards. All but the final clip were in the botanics on what I think is phacelia. Although I was pleased with the details of the insects, it is the light through the flower colours, that creates the ambience.