Paxton East Scrub Survey

On Tuesday, our monthly survey was in the East Scrub area at Paxton. Despite the overcast conditions, our group recorded over 100 species of invertebrate in the couple of hours. The area is dominated by nettles - rich in all kinds of insects including one of my favourites - the Speckled Bush Cricket - here a very small first instar with its wonderful stripey legs

Insects in the Rain

 With the wet and cooler conditions, most of the insects were resting up on or under leaves or in the grass during the last few days just coming out with the sun. Here a selection - most identified!

Toft Invertebrates (2)

Here are yesterday's species. First the bees - Tawny Mining Bee (male), Early Bumble Bee and Hairy footed Bee (female); then the Hoverflies including a Platycheirus albimanus in the jaws of a Flower Spider, several other fly species including the Bee Fly and finishing with Box Moth caterpillars and my first record of a Caddis fly larva from my pond.

Toft Invertebrates (1)

The insects are certainly getting active now with lots of different species of flies and plant bugs in the garden so I have quite a task to get them all identified and the species catalogued for my Toft list and recorded on i-record.