Inverts Emerge from Winter Hibernation

As the temperature climbed to 19 degrees insects and spiders emerged from the vegetation. Gwynne's Bee is always one of the first to be recorded and please to see a Zebra Jumping spider holding the usual territory on the summerhouse wall

 

Paxton Survey - Sanctuary

I did a survey of the sanctuary and the Meadow along side it on Thursday as I could't go on Saturday.Here are some of the more confiding insect and spider species - over 50 more or less identified.

First Wildlife Survey in Toft 2024

The present warm temperatures (up to 18 degrees yesterday) have certainly woken up the insects in Toft. Athough the two hoverflies are the same as last year around this time - Episyrphus balteatus and Eristalis tenax - there were lots of different Diptera species, a new bug to me - the Jumping Nettle louse, lots of Ladybirds including another new species, the Pine Ladybird, an interesting Door Snail, three species of spider, and four Hymenoptera including the expected Early Bumblebee - Bombus  pratorum.

Lichens at RPSB Sandy

As often happens when I am out with my camera, I got fixated on the variety of lichens growing on the sandy soils in the reserve. Not great quality images as they are all very small and these in-camera stacks don't give enough depth of field in most cases as it is restricted to 8 shots. I will return and try again taking 20+ stacks to process in the computer. There were lots of ladybirds and very very small spiders (Mangora acalypha)

Toft Churchyard 30th March: Shieldbugs!

Warm sunshine brought out a number of Shieldbugs including two new species for my list, Bronze Shieldbug and Bordered Shieldbug.