Tag: Insects

Aphids watch out! 👽

Daniel Greenwood1 Comment

I’m posting garden macro photos from the 17th and 30th May. I have some really interesting photos from the 31st but that is probably more than one post in itself.

There are a couple of intriguing species I encountered in my garden between mid-late May, one of the very best times to look for our tiny invertebrate friends in this part of the world.

These are by no means great images (I would need extension tubes to increase the magnification) but the species may be an interesting type of wasp. It might be an aphid wasp, which is a group of wasps I haven’t heard of or seen before (there are thousands, even in the nature-depleted UK).

I’ve posted about aphids this year, and have noticed just how good a year they’re having. I listened to this episode of the Food Programme last week on the subject of potatoes, and didn’t realise aphids could trouble potato farmers. Perhaps they need to start gardening for aphid wasps!

We have a tiny pond which supports frogs and is planted with native aquatic plants. One of those plants is flag iris, which the bigger bees love. I enjoy seeing the bees climb through the yellow petals to nectar on the stamens. This bee is probably in the megachile group, perhaps one of the leafcutter species. Someone on iNaturalist suggests it’s a mason bee, so I’m not sure.

I like how leafcutters are in their own world. They often appear after the red mason bees and hairy-footed flower bees have gone, but they seem like they’ve always been there, so focused are they on their leafcutting tasks.

Another welcome sight in the bee world (it’s so much more than honeybees!) are the wool carder bees. I planted this stachys (or lambs ears) for the WCBs in 2020, and they immediately arrived.

Regular readers of this blog may recognise this species from previous posts, who just couldn’t keep out of this week’s post. I used to look like this. These may be an orange-vented mason bee.

This capsid or mirid bug was chilling in the hedge, as they often do.

And finally, those trusty honey lilies were looking their best in the evening light, as their flowering period drew to a close.

Next week we’ll see out May with some pretty epic wasp vs. spider scenes and miniscule bees.

Thanks for reading.

Macro

Tiny bees everywhere

Daniel GreenwoodLeave a comment

On 16th May there were lots of small bees to be found in my garden, but more of them later.

This was one of the first sightings of a small purple and gold, or mint moth.

Taking macro photos in gardens introduced me to the capsid bugs. This is one. I’ve seen lots of one species in the hedge this year, they are quite ‘alien’-looking in the sci-fi sense.

Now to the bees. I spotted what I thought was a blue mason bee on the fence, but instead it may be a different mason bee. Compared with the red mason bees, this species, whatever it is, appears later in the spring and lasts longer until the summer.

I love the light in these pics, and it’s all au naturale. Someone on iNaturalist has suggested this is one of the leafcutter bees.

This bee is potentially a little blue carpenter bee. I enjoy the background colours of the rose above…

…and the yellow and cream of the honeysuckle. Backgrounds in macro can make a very big impact on the photo. This is a species of sweat bee.

Finally, I didn’t get this little wasp in focus, but I like these brief encounters with random wasps. It reminds me that there is still huge biological diversity in the UK and the world does not revolve around us.

Thanks for reading.

Macro

Midsummer buglife 🪲

Daniel Greenwood5 Comments

Warnham Local Nature Reserve, West Sussex, July 2024

I was making my first meaningful trip out to a wild space after being ill with Covid, to see if I could concentrate enough on taking some macro pics. Thankfully there were some very docile bugs pleading for their close up. Here you go, team.

I’ve missed a lot of the macro season this year, what has probably been one of the ‘worst’ summers in this part of England. Lots of rain, quite cool, clear lack of insects. I’m only just getting over brain fog so not able to compute how worrying the insect declines are right now. It seems that approving the use of bee-killing pesticides without appropriate risk assessment doesn’t help.

I was fortunate to spot this cinnamon bug nectaring in the flowerhead of a Michaelmas daisy within a few minutes of my visit to Warnham Local Nature Reserve. I love how this pollinating beetles get so covered by the pollen. It’s a bit like me after eating a choc ice.

Though flies are feared and reviled for their connections with unpleasant organic matter in this world, some of them are very interesting to look at. Many of them also tend to be pollinators. It’s not all about the bees. This fly is probably Nowickia ferox, which feeds on flowers. Moth fans – look away now. Their larvae develop in the dark arches moth.

Dock bugs are a common sight in southern England, especially in flowery grasslands and meadows. They are very easy to photograph – they’re like the mushrooms of the insect world, slow moving, if at all. How trusting.

Elsewhere, this mid-summer period is one of hoverflies, many which looked very similar to the untrained eye (this one) but which can be nice subjects among the flowers of hogweed and other umbellifers.

I was pleased with this photo of a dancefly as it nectared on some ailing hogweed flowers. That is one heck of a proboscis. The light is very soft and the background is a serene green.

Over the years (I’ve been using a dedicated macro lens since 2014) I’ve learned about species behaviour, and how a little bit of knowledge can really help you to find wildlife. In terms of invertebrates, I remember a blog written about fenceposts and how they were a good place to find roosting insects. This is solid advice.

During this visit, in the forefront of my mind was a past, failed attempt to photograph a robberfly where it sat on a handrail. On that same handrail I didn’t find a robberfly, but instead my mother and father-in-law, which was also nice. But, that wasn’t the end of the story…

Turning to head home, realising how fatigued I was, and lacking in normal, basic levels of energy, I spotted something. A robberfly was sat on a different handrail! It’s so pleasing to have this sense of validation for my fencepost knowledge.

In the world of wasps, we are of course in the throes of the UK Media Silly Season (despite there being a General Election, potential dictatorship in the US, and far-right riots across the UK!) and wasps are in the news. Interestingly the mwin story is, where are they?

iNaturalist users think the wasp above is a German wasp. What you can see is the wasp gathering wood shavings for a nest. But that wasn’t the only wasp I saw.

July and August are good months to see the iconic ichneumon wasps. I absolutely love them, an interest which was deepened by reading The Snoring Bird (I recommend it). I wasn’t fast enough for this ichneumon to really get a strong pic, but this will do.

Even worse was this attempt to photograph one of the Gasteruption ichneumons. People, I am just too short for plants that want to grow this tall. I do enjoy the bokeh here though (circular light in the background). Take that, full-frame cameras!

So, all in all a decent showing for a fatigued individual.

Thanks for reading.

Photos taken with Olympus EM1 Mark III and 60mm f2.8 macro lens, edited in Lightroom.

Macro

Sawflies munching the gooseberry 😋

Daniel Greenwood3 Comments

In June, my wife called me out to the garden because she’d found something in the gooseberry. Pretty standard.

She has an amazing ability to find things and is especially good at foraging. In this instance she’d found caterpillars munching through the gooseberry leaves.

There was a sense of both amazement at what we were witnessing and fear for the health of the shrub. We don’t survive on gooseberries and the birds almost always get to them first, but you don’t really want your shrub to die. Then again it hasn’t exactly been a raging success, to be honest.

Personally, I always think English gardening culture fails to accept death and decay into the mix, and the important role that plays. Gardens should feed local wildlife, not just be a killing zone for visitors deemed unwelcome.

One summer does not a garden make!

With the help of iNaturalist I understand these to be small gooseberry sawflies (Pristiphora appendiculata). Sawflies are relatives of bees and wasps that are common in gardens and elsewhere.

I do love this view of the sawfly caterpillar nibbling its way through the leaf. When we looked at them on the gooseberry new caterpillars would appear as your eyes adjusted.

In the days that followed I noticed house sparrows hanging from the surrounding raspberries and picking at the gooseberry. That’s a very good meal, especially for fledglings.

Some days later I spotted a new visitor to the gooseberry. I was confident this was a sawfly (not knowing anything about their lifecycle) but unsure if this was one of the caterpillars emerged as an adult insect. I’m not sure, but it’s likely to be an adult small gooseberry sawfly.

As for the gooseberry bush, it looks ‘touch and go’ as football physios say. It’s part of the game of life.

Thanks for reading.

Macro

First ichneumon wasp of 2024 🐝

Daniel Greenwood4 Comments

You know it’s spring when the bees and things start getting trapped indoors again. I visited my mum on Easter Sunday and her kitchen (which has lots of windows) turned into a veritable insect survey trap. Not just the ‘horrible flies’ she pointed out, but this lovely ichneumon wasp which I rescued with a glass and a local elections envelope.

Looking at iNaturalist, this is probably a yellow-striped Darwin wasp (Ichneumon xanthorius).

You can probably tell that these are phone pics, I haven’t quite got into proper macro lens work yet this year, but soon! I love the orange-yellow-black fade of the antennae, which is probably where the name ‘xanthoria’ comes from in the scientific name.

Xanthoria is a genus of lichens which are commonly known as sunburst lichens. In Latin it means golden yellow, which is perfect.

And here’s the proof – Xanthoria parietina, a pollution-tolerant lichen that grows everywhere.

Thanks for reading.

Macro Monday: the wasp that made Darwin doubt God

Daniel Greenwood7 Comments

GDN_2-8-2020_djg-1

Macro Monday 10th August 2020

Welcome to the weekly wasp.

A couple of years ago my friend recommended a book called The Snoring Bird by Bernd Heinrich. The book is a memoir about Heinrich’s relationship with his father, Gerd, an entomologist who collected ichneumon wasps but who was never fully accepted by the scientific or academic community. Bernd tells the story of his father’s escape from the Red Army in 1945 and how he buries his collection of ichenumonids so they aren’t destroyed. Gerd travelled around the world collecting specimens.

986d14cb4c3f5974e3f4e6d3c7e93fd5

In Britain we have poorer biodiversity than even our closest continental neighbours because of physical separation from the European landmass, intensifying land management practices, the impact of successive ice ages and, furthermore, the fact our climate is not tropical. But even then, we still have over 2000 species, which you can’t say for other fauna like birds or butterflies.

Reading The Snoring Bird consolidated a personal fascination with wasps, one which has not really travelled beyond blogposts, photos and seeking them out where I can. I’m not a collector of anything other than images.

Ichneumons have what we perceive as an unpleasant ecology. Females use their needle-like ovipositor to ‘inject’ their eggs into the burrows of insects, into crevices in wood or, most appallingly to our species, caterpillars or the larvae of bees. The eggs hatch inside the live caterpillar and eat it. It’s probably where the inspiration for the Alien films came from. To balance things out, insects inspired the creation of Pokemon.

GDN_2-8-2020_djg-9

Last week I was sitting in my garden catching up with visiting family. I looked to my right at a pot of ornamental yarrow flowers (Achillea). I had noticed a bit of activity and glanced over to see a slender insect flying around the flowers. It was the equivalent of a video buffering over a poor quality internet connection. When it landed on one of the flowers I recognised it instantly as an ichneumon wasp. I ran inside to get my camera and managed to get some good photos: in focus, well lit and sharp enough.

GDN_2-8-2020_djg-10

I have always wanted to see this species. Its scientific name is Gasteruption jaculator. To find it in my garden was a real surprise and one of the highlights of my time seeking wildlife.

Why might it have visited? We actively garden for wildlife, insects particularly, and there is a log store that this kind of species will seek out. A couple of months ago I saw a similar species hovering around the logs, but I couldn’t get my camera quick enough and it moved on.

GDN_2-8-2020_djg-5

There are people whose first reaction to seeing this insect may be to kill it because of its ecology. That, to me, says everything about our misunderstanding of nature. A natural history lesson will tell us that without solitary wasps such as these we would have no social bees, a community of insects which prop up our dependencies on pollination of both crops and other flowering plants (including trees). Social bees evolved from solitaries wasps. The ichneumon’s ecological relationship with bees is one millions of years old, one small part of a web of life that has given human societies licence to develop through an abundance of food.

coulsdon-30-6-17-djg-42

However, this is an insect which has affected the way some of the science’s key thinkers have framed their own mortality. Darwin doubted that any benevolent God could have created animals which behaved in this way. Not sure about you, but I often think that about Donald Trump or Boris Johnson.

A few years ago I encountered a cousin of the ichneumon that visited me in my garden. It has a far shorter ovipositor and its scientific name is Gasteruption assectator. I was walking on the North Downs when I found the insect nectaring on hogweed flowers. A woman passed me and asked what I had found. I said I’d found the insect that made Darwin doubt God. She looked away with a knowing smile:

‘I remember reading about them,’ she said.

Thanks for reading.

More macro

Recent photos taken with Nikon D5600, Sigma 105mm F2.8 macro lens, Nikon SB700 flash and Raynox 250 adaptor.

 

 

 

Macro Monday: the blood bee’s cuckoo spree

Daniel GreenwoodLeave a comment

GDN_6-7-2020_lo-res-31

Macro Monday 13th July 2020

The cooler weather continues, interspersed with rain and cloudier days. These are good macro conditions. I spent a couple of lunchtimes outside this week with my heavier macro equipment – I have been very lazy recently only using my smaller mirrorless camera with in-built flash – and what I saw was pretty harrowing but also quite amazing.

GDN_6-7-2020_lo-res-02

I have mentioned before that part of my lawn is dying, likely due to the lack of spring rain. I don’t mind this because it annoys people who like tidy gardens and it provides a habitat niche for wildlife. In this case, it was for the benefit of yellow-legged mining bees (I still haven’t confirmed that ID but will go with it). The ground will recover anyway in the autumn and winter. I was sitting on the grass to see if some of the mining bees would be coming out. I noticed a dead bee and took a photo. Then I noticed another one. There was another insect hovering over the area of mining bee nests which at first thought was something like a ruby-tailed wasp, as I could see its red ‘tail’ or lower body. I was desperate for it to land so I could get a photo. When it did, I was amazed at what happened next.

GDN_6-7-2020_lo-res-30

It flew down straight to the nesting holes and pulled a roosting mining bee out.

GDN_6-7-2020_lo-res-29

A wrestling match then ensued among the dead grasses surrounding the nesting hole.

GDN_6-7-2020_lo-res-28

I recognised that the insect was a blood bee, having seen them for the first time last month on the South Downs. The blood bee was the stronger of the two.

GDN_6-7-2020_lo-res-08

This was the best image I got from what I realised was the blood bee stinging (perhaps) the mining bee and either paralysing or killing it. By this point the adrenaline was pumping for me also. The mining bee began to thrash around when it was released by the blood bee and it lay next to another mining bee which was still alive but fading away. I believe the blood bee had pulled the mining bees out of the nests (perhaps they were a male and female together in one nest) and killed them to use the nest for itself. It was at this point that I began to notice more dead mining bees and it dawned on me – I was watching the raid of a blood bee on an entire colony of mining bees in my own small garden.

GDN_7-7-2020-lo-res-05

I had gone back to work after that somewhat shocked by the smash and grab episode. I did feel sadness for the mining bees and the killing field which had appeared in my garden. But that’s a human response to an issue that doesn’t exist. We should feel much greater sadness or anger for a wider loss of habitat than we should say a magpie or jay raiding a nest. You have to remember the bigger picture.

The next day I went out again at lunchtime to see how the mining bees were doing. I found a detached ‘doorway’ of soil which had a dead mining bee in it but there were several sitting in their doorways.

GDN_7-7-2020-lo-res-01

I don’t think there can be any sense of change for this community of bees (bearing in mind they’re not social but solitary, beyond their pairs). They will be aware of the threats they face, not least the house sparrows that often pluck bees and butterflies from the air. Some were still visiting flowers and there was no sign of the blood bee.

GDN_7-7-2020-lo-res-03

There was need for a lockdown here, the mining bees had no choice but to go on. Of course, that is not comparable to the situation our species finds itself in.

GDN_6-7-2020_lo-res-47

Nearby, this common yellow-face mining bee was recharging its battery in the hedge. It was really nice to finally get a decent image of this very small badger-like insect.

GDN 10-7-2020-lo-res-08

It’s been a tough week for the mining bees in general. I was looking around a patch of cranesbills in a shadier corner and saw a dead bee floating in midair. Then I noticed the crab spider which had caught it. The spider was so well camouflaged, reflecting the fact that this species is able to change colour to match the flower it is hunting from. This is probably Misumena vatia, a common crab spider found in gardens, woods, meadows and urban habitats. This spider was turning the bee around and dropped it from its perch. I wonder if it climbed down to get it.

GDN 10-7-2020-lo-res-27

Only a couple of inches away, another crab spider had caught a mining bee. Not a good day at the office!

GDN 10-7-2020-lo-res-47

Wasps have had a lot of coverage in this blog and I was delighted to find a species of big-headed digger wasp (Ectemnius) on the fence one lunchtime. I was involved in a conversation with a neighbour at the time and had to say, sorry, I need to try and photograph this wasp! It would have been great to see it head on, but it didn’t hang around.

GDN 10-7-2020-lo-res-36

We’ve let the grass grow long in parts of our small garden. At times I’ve heard the sibilant sound of a cricket or grasshopper, showing the importance of allowing the grass to grow. In the hedge one lunchtime I found this speckled bush cricket. It really did not like me noticing it and would shuffle into the leaves to try and hide.

GDN_6-7-2020_lo-res-34

Ending on a gentler note than this post began with, I have been trying to grow courgettes this year after experiencing the same panic that many people felt about supermarkets back in March. I didn’t stockpile toilet roll-shaped pasta though. Many of the courgettes are now flowering and I was interested to see if they had any value for insects. Sure enough, this flower was rammed with pollen beetles.

Thanks for reading.

More macro

 

Macro Monday: real bees and wannabees

Daniel Greenwood2 Comments

GDN - 16-5-2020-lo-res-12

Macro Monday 25th May 2020

Happy Bank Holiday Monday to British readers. Recent weather has been hot, with strong winds coming in on Friday, blowing macro out of the equation. I’ve kept to my routine of garden and local walking.

Last week I said the bumblebee workers were beginning to appear, and this week I’m keeping up to my promise.

GDN - 16-5-2020-lo-res-05

I took lots of photos of bumblebees visiting flowers but they are very difficult to get in focus because of the shallow depth of field that macro lenses have. Therefore, the only decent photos I got were the header image and this here. These open spiked flowers are excellent for bumblebees, similar to foxgloves.

GDN - 16-5-2020-lo-res-13

I had better luck with the solitary bees such as this mason bee visiting a cranesbill flower. I’ve noticed that our bee hotel is now quiet and the early spring activity has ended. But the mason bees are still active. I wonder where they’re spending their time?

OLYMPUS DIGITAL CAMERA

A few weeks ago I mentioned a mason bee that was giving me the right royal runaround. I think this is the same bee. I can see it from the window upstairs as it find the same place to bask on a sleeper that separates our garden from the brick patio.

OLYMPUS DIGITAL CAMERA

Here he or she is again up close. I love the golden sheen of its head, it’s almost like something from an episode of Ru Paul’s Drag Race.

GDN - 16-5-2020-lo-res-09

This is a new bee for my garden list and a species I haven’t seen before. It’s a relative of the hairy-footed flower bee which is a common early spring species. I think it’s a four-banded flower bee, Anthophora quadrimaculata. They nest in buildings. There’s plenty of dodgy mortar around where I live to provide them with a home.

OLYMPUS DIGITAL CAMERA

Moving on from the bees, despite what this hoverfly may have wanted, many species pretend to have the look of a wasp or bee. This is an area of evolutionary biology I’d like to learn more about (if you know a good book, please let me know). This is a bee-mimicking hoverfly. This one is mimicking a carder bumblebee with its ginger thorax (I’ve got one too).

OLYMPUS DIGITAL CAMERA

It’s not just hoverflies that mimic bees and wasps. One afternoon I noticed there was a wasp beetle sitting on my window ledge. In London I’ve seen these beetles on yellow and black things that help them to camouflage. I once saw one on the pedestrian road crossing box which is black and yellow. Urban insectlife at its best.

OLYMPUS DIGITAL CAMERA

In the bug world I found this mirid bug posing on the lamb’s ear (which, by the way, is so close to flowering). It had a lovely orange glow to its body and eye, merging with the green.

OLYMPUS DIGITAL CAMERA

When I was a teenager I can recall insects crash landing behind the TV on summer nights when we had the window open. The culprit was almost always a hawthorn shieldbug smashing into the lamp. This week one tried to join me at my desk while I worked from home. Perhaps this was the same bug that I originally met on the garden fence.

OLYMPUS DIGITAL CAMERA

Having spent time trying to find jumping spiders, they are now coming to me. Eating lunch in the garden, I have found jumping spiders exploring my arms and legs. They’re really very sweet arachnids. I’m not sure if it’s producing this spider silk or just crossing it.

OLYMPUS DIGITAL CAMERA

This was another chance encounter in the lamb’s ear, where all the cool invertebrates hang out. I couldn’t resist keeping the background bokeh in the crop.

OLYMPUS DIGITAL CAMERA

I accept that some spiders are less cute and fluffy. But this yellow crab spider was incredible. It was hanging around the lamb’s ear seeking its prey. It didn’t really mind me getting close with my small mirrorless camera. I know many people are missing hugs right now, but this probably isn’t the hug you’re looking for.

Thanks for reading.

More macro

Macro Monday: getting the excuses in early

Daniel GreenwoodLeave a comment

OLYMPUS DIGITAL CAMERA
Planthoppers on a sage leaf

Macro Monday 4th May 2020

This week I’m going to get my excuses in early. The weather in West Sussex has been cool and wet over the past week. The insect life has was shoved back into March, with April ending as many would have expected it to start. This is not good for fairweather macro photographers.

OLYMPUS DIGITAL CAMERA

Working from home for 40 hours a week doesn’t help. Lunch breaks are spent trying to make food, rather than having it ready to eat. This is also the time in the day when the insect life is most active – that is not necessarily a good thing because they’re too quick and the light can be very harsh. Last week it chucked down all kinds of rain during my lunch breaks. Saturday was much better though and the time for the flowering of lambs’ ears gets closer and closer. The image above shows my main studio.

OLYMPUS DIGITAL CAMERA

Up close you can see how attractive the leaves are for planthoppers. They look warm and easy to attach to. This planthopper had its own window through which it could look out onto the world.

OLYMPUS DIGITAL CAMERA

I noticed far fewer bees this week, though the bumblebee colonies are open for business. This fly was resting on a raspberry leaf.

OLYMPUS DIGITAL CAMERA

We have inherited most of the plants in our garden and I am waiting to see what these flowers are. For the past few weeks ants have been feeding on the leaves as they open, no doubt producing nectar or something that is useful to them.

OLYMPUS DIGITAL CAMERA

Zebra jumping spiders are one of the only species I ever see in my garden but for maybe one other. I’ve actually had one in the bathroom sink. At last, I managed to get one with its eyes in focus.

OLYMPUS DIGITAL CAMERA

I am very fortunate to be able to walk to the countryside from where I live. I haven’t driven or travelled to any green space other than on foot or by bike for six weeks. I believe very strongly that people should not be taking the piss at the moment. Also, the guidance from the police is massively confusing and I know it is acceptable to drive a short distance away if you need to for exercise. This is a nature reserve on the edge of the River Arun that I visited at the end of the week. My garden is small and in an urban location with little connectivity with wider green spaces. Here however there was much more going on.

OLYMPUS DIGITAL CAMERA

In 2014 I went to the Czech Republic at this time of year and there was a ‘plague’ of St. Mark’s flies. I have never seen so many insects as I did then in Czechia, they were in the towns and the countryside. I enjoy how chilled this insect is here.

OLYMPUS DIGITAL CAMERA

The hazel hedges are now fully in leaf. I found this species of lacewing with a beautiful jade eye and black and white markings to its body.

OLYMPUS DIGITAL CAMERA

I really have no idea what this fly is, perhaps a dancefly. That is a proboscis you don’t want to meet in a dark alley. It’s obviously used to suck the life out of something.

OLYMPUS DIGITAL CAMERA

This is a lovely time of year. I love when the trees flower. This is possibly the biggest clutch of oak flowers I’ve ever seen on one branch. If you can find joy in new things like this, you’re winning.

OLYMPUS DIGITAL CAMERA

The oak saplings are leafing in the grasslands, where people probably don’t want them to be.

OLYMPUS DIGITAL CAMERA

The first clovers are now coming into flower. Starting this weekly(!) blog in March means that now there’s a chance to look more at flowers. It will be very sad to miss the chalk downlands this year because it’s too far from my home to get to. One thing this time should teach us is how important green space is for our health. If this situation does not lead to greater protection for green space and the drive to provide more of it, then what will?

Thanks for reading.

More macro