Wonderful wildlife

Self-taught amateur entomologist Sabina George has been snapping super pictures of the creatures you may or may not have noticed in residence on your plots. A keen insect photographer who spends winter recording finds on iRecord (a database for UK Flora & Fauna), Sabina is always looking for new sites to explore and KATA was only too willing to take up her offer of having a looksie at what goes on around us on a sometimes very small scale…

latest sightings

The drought continued in August so a relief to find hoverflies including
the Small Spotty-eyed Drone fly on Plot 79's mustard flowers. Green
manure used to enrich the soil is equally beneficial in bloom for
insects. On the nearby Helichrysum, Stripe-faced and Yellow-girdled
Dasysyrphus hoverflies feasted on the plentiful pollen. A very slender
slender Spider hunting wasp seen stalking across leaves. In the centre
of the collage a female Green-veined butterfly with her raised abdomen
upright tells a male she has already mated. Some other female white
butterflies share this 'mating refusal' behavior.  Small Copper taken
feeding slowly at Corn Marigold. By the river I was lucky to spot a
Caddisfly with very long white antennae. The Light Brown Apple Moth
visible on a leaf although it usually flies at dusk. The Field Digger
wasp is an excellent hunter darting back and forth over flowers and
leaves. In our garden I watched a Field Digger Wasp patrol Alyssum
flowers and suddenly pounce on a Greenbottle fly. After a brief struggle
she flew up to a wooden vertical wall. There, using only her back legs
to hand vertically and using the others to hold fly, she set about
vigorously removing the head. After about three minutes she lost control
of the fly. Click the button to watch the video showing the Field Digger Wasp with the greenbottle.

Sabina George

All words courtesy of Sabina George. Thank you for regularly visiting our sites, Sabina, and keeping us up to date on your findings about this vital group of organisms.