Flies, Bees and Wasps

You get days when there seems to be nothing about, no birds, no butterflies and no dragonflies. However, if you look hard enough there is always something flying, even if it's usually the Cleggies out to drink your blood.

Below are a few of the Flies, Hoverflies, and Bees encountered this year. I have tied to identify them all but its hard work. There are so many that look similar and without killing and pinning them you cannot confirm the identifying features.  If you spot any errors please let me know. There are no pictures of cleggies, they don't usually survive long enough.

First the Flies. Some of them can be really beautiful.

Green Bottle Fly - Lucilia sericata

Blue Bottle  -   Calliphora  sp. probably vicina

Fly - Graphomya maculata Female

Fly - Musca autumnalis

Fly - Tachina fera or magnicornis

Fly - Phasia hemiptera

Sarcophaga sp. probably bercaea

Hoverflies

Tapered Drone Fly (Hoverfly) - Eristalis pertinax   

Dronefly (Hoverfly) -  Eristalis tenax

Hoverfly - Chrysotoxum bicinctum

Hoverfly - Myathropa florea

Helophilus pendulus

Hornet Mimic Hoverfly  -  Volucella zonaria

The Bees

Wool Carder Bee  -  Anthidium manicatum

Buff-tailed Bumblebee  -  Bombus terrestris   
Has a narrow buff band between the black and white on the tail

Common Carder Bee - Bombus pascuorum

Ivy Bee  -  Colletes Hederae

Large Carpenter Bee - Xylocopa violacea   (Croatia)

Two Wasp

Field digger wasp  -  Mellinus arvensis

Ichneumon Wasp - Amblyteles armatorius

a couple of shots of a Scorpion Fly

Scorpion Fly -  Panorpa communis

Scorpion Fly -  Panorpa communis

a couple of Mayflies - I think, but it may be safer to refer to them as Ephemeroptera

Mayfly 

Mayfly  -  Ephemera danica ?

and a Hornet

European Hornet  -  Vespa crabro

Nothing really unusual here but quite interesting once you get into it. Identification of the Mayflies was certainly beyond my abilities at the moment. I have a lot to learn.

Bugs and Beetles

Time is always short and photographs of insects usually need a good bit of research to enable names to be put to them. Hence they tend to get dumped into a folder to be looked at later. A recent dull and windy afternoon, the folder finally gets opened and the first one I look at is a Hawthorn Shieldbug. A bit of a coincidence as I had just been looking at on-line Atlas of Sussex Shieldbugs. What a great resource, lots of data and a clear demonstration that the information that you add is actually being used.

Thought I would add my Shieldbug but then realised that I hadn't made a note of where I saw it. I need to be a bit more focused next time.

Hawthorn Shieldbug -  Acanthosoma haemorrhoidale

Insects are a fascinating subject when it comes to photography. I have an aversion to netting them and sticking pins in them but getting a decent picture in their natural environment is always a great challenge. Perhaps, if I ever tire of taking pictures of the same old birds over and over again, I will find the time to get more involved.

Until then here are just a few shots from around the Sussex area.

Spotted Longhorn Beetle  -  Rutpela maculata

Four banded Longhorn Beetle  -  Leptura quadrifasciata

Rhopalidae Corizus hyoscyami

Cardinal Beetle  -  Pyrochroa serraticornis

Black-headed Cardinal Beetle  -  Pyrochroa coccinea

Red Lily Beetle  -  Lilioceris lilii

Green Rose Chaffer - Cetonia aurata     (Not Sussex)

Green Rose Chaffer - Cetonia aurata    (Not Sussex)

Mating Bloody-nosed Beetles  -  Timarcha tenebricosa     (this one I have blogged before)

Green Tiger Beetle  -  Cicindela campestris

Thick-legged Flower Beetle  -  Oedemera nobilis

Harlequin Ladybird Larvae  -  Harmonia axyridis

As always, if I have made any mistakes in identification, please let me know. Flies Hoverflies and Bees to follow.

Painted Ladies

I have been hanging on to this blog with the intention of adding a Clouded Yellow, as a way to finish off the butterflies for the year. Sadly they don't seem to be arriving in the usual numbers. I have only seen one and that was on turbo power disappearing into the distance.

The pictures are now starting to look a little dated with most of the insects coming to the end of their flight periods. So published now with, hopefully, a Clouded Yellow still to come.

Painted Lady

Painted Lady

Common Blue

Common Blue

Small Copper

Keeled Skimmer

Migrant Hawker

Broad-bodied Chaser

Black Darter

There are still a few Butterflies and Dragonflies around but this is really the end of another season. Time seems to go by ever more quickly.

Pectoral Sandpiper

I seem to have spent a lot of time over the past week standing around waiting for birds to turn up. I went to see the Ortolan Bunting on Sunday morning. Stood around with a few other guys for about three hours waiting for it to show and eventually went home disappointed. Should have gone on Saturday, it would have been a life tick as well.

Today I went to Farlington Marsh to see the Pectoral Sandpiper. The Bluethroat reported there last night would also have been nice but given the strength of the winds it was unlikely that any small birds would be showing in the open. No point in wasting any time looking for it, so instead I wasted four hours trying to find the Pec Sand.

Got it eventually and even got a couple of pictures but why is it that when you find anything good, you usually end up with trying to take a brown bird against a brown background with backlighting and glare off the water.

Still, at least I did get to see it.

Pectoral Sandpiper

The bird showed quite well, if a bit distant, but unfortunately looked to be injured and was avoiding putting weight on one of its legs.

Pectoral Sandpiper

A few other pictures from the past week. A Corn Bunting from up on Chantry Hill, one of a large foraging flock.

Corn Bunting

and a scraggy looking Meadow Pipit

Meadow Pipit

We kept a look out for Honey Buzzards but they were all commons.

Common Buzzard

The North Wall at Pagham had a few good birds but again all a bit distant. There have been about a dozen Cattle Egrets around the area but it was unusual to see this one at the back of the Breech Pool along with a couple of Little Egrets.

and the Spoonbill roosting on the island along with the Little Egrets and Herons

Spoonbill

Also a Sparrowhawk making a couple of passes over the Breech Pool and causing panic amongst the waders feeding there.

Sparrowhawk

Willow Warbler

The Pectoral Sandpiper brings up my 200 for the year. Still a bit down on previous years but then I am still missing a few of the more common birds, Water Rail, Firecrest, Black Redstart. Must have been going around with my eyes closed. Also a big gap this year from not having an early spring Scotland trip.

Wryneck

A morning up on Chantry and Kithurst hills, earlier in the week, gave great sightings of up to ten Ravens and half a dozen Buzzards. We watched them for a couple of hours as they practiced aerobatics, squabbled over territory, and just seemed to be enjoying themselves tumbling in the updrafts.

Great fun but a bit of a disaster for me, photographic wise. I took lots of pictures but the quality was just not there; poor light, blurred, out of focus, heat haze, mist, lots of excuses but at the end of the day, probably just that the photographers skills were not up to the challenge. So only one shot from the session.

Ravens on Kithurst Hill

Find of the day was this Wryneck spotted in the distance as we waked up towards the trig point. Nice to find our own rather than have to go twitching someone else's bird, even if we did only get fleeting views.

Big crop of a distant Wryneck

Lots of Yellowhammers and Corn Buntings about although the flock of Corn Buntings seemed to be making a point of avoiding anywhere that I chose to stand.

Yellowhammer

A trip up to Cissbury today produced mixed results, with the usually reliable Monarch's Way proving to be virtually birdless. We did see a few Yellow Wagtails in with the cattle but these were spooked by the farmer coming through on his quad bike.

Yellow Wagtail

Cissbury Ring itself was also looking quiet with just a raven and a couple of Wheatears.

Wheatear

Second Wheatear

But fortunately, as we were about to leave a mixed flock of Spotted Flycatchers and Redstarts came through the wooded area on the east of the ring and rescued the day.

Redstart

Spotted Flycatchers

Earlier in the week we had seen a good number of Yellow Wagtails in with the cattle at the western end of the North Wall but these had proved to be very flighty. With good numbers of Cattle Egrets being reported it seemed to be worth another visit.

Grey Heron on the Breech Pool

There was no sign of the Yellow Wags but the Cattle Egrets were showing well with a group of twelve birds, consisting of eleven Cattle Egrets and one Little Egret. A record number for me in this country.

Eleven Cattle Egrets and One Little Egret front right

We also managed to get a distant sighting of the Spoonbill out in White's Creek but missed out on the Curlew Sandpiper that has been around for a few days.