Toft's Bees and Other Wildlife Wake Up

 The warm conditions yesterday brought a lot of species out of their winter dormancy and onto the foliage. Favourites definitely the small Weevil, Box Bug, Bee Fly, and the unusual-looking parasitic fly, Gonia picea. I recently received the new Flies book by Stephen Falk and others so looked it up. The Dark broadface visits flowers including Daisy, is parasitic on moths including Square-spot Rustic which we definitely have in the garden and is one of the first Tachinid to appear in spring. Bees more difficult to ID!

Spring is Progressing with Damselfly Pairing and Painted Lady

The Jumping Spiders have really thrived in the hot dry weather and whenever I am weeding, whether at ground level or, as here, in the currant bushes, one of them is eyeing me up. Fortunately he caught a leaf hopper soon after this. First Painted Lady of the season and the Red Damselflies and Azure Damsels are paired up and laying in the pond. The Weevil is exquisite in the detail for a very very small beetle - I haven't yet found a suitable match. 

Cribbs Meadow Flowers and Weevil

Previous years, Cribbs Meadows have been full of Green-winged Orchids but this year, with the dry spring, there were very few to be seen and the previous swamp areas are dry and cracked. We did find a lot of Adders Tongue and the Water Avens appears not to have suffered. The insects were enjoying the warm conditions and most of the flowers seemed to have visitors including this great little Weevil.

April Butterfly and Dragonfly Survey

 Today was our first Butterfly and Dragonfly survey of 2025 at Paxton but the cool weather meant sightings of the former were limited to a very few species and individuals though we did record a few Grizzled Skippers, along with Brown Argus, Orange tips etc. Only a handful of Damselflies mostly just emerged. There were a number of very curious (even ugly) bugs around including a Beetle - Platyrhinus resinosus Scarce Fungus Weevil which lives on the black knobbly fungus - Alfred cakes and a larva of a micromoth Coleophora pennella Bugloss case-bearer.

Burgh on Bain Lincs Insects

We spent the weekend in a very comfortable AirBNB at Burgh on Bain in Lincolnshire which had large areas of wet meadows that I explored in the early morning. Here a few dew-covered creatures