15 Jul 18

Wakeham

Another sunny morning and the back garden was alive with butterflies, bees and hoverflies.

Butterflies seen were Large Whites, Small Whites, a Red Admiral and 2 Gatekeepers.

Moths just 2 Silver Y's.

Bees included Red-tailed Cuckoo-bees (Bombus rupestris),  Common Carder Bee (Bombus pascuorum), a sweat bee sp., a mining bee sp. and a Honey Bee (Apis mellifera).

Just the one wasp an European Paper Wasp (Polistes Dominula).

Hoverflies recorded were Pied Hoverfly (Scaeva pyrastri), Dead Head Hoverfly (Myathropa florea), Long Hoverfly (Sphaerophoria scripta) and Marmalade Hoverflies (Episyrphus balteatus).

Here are a few images from this morning:

A Large White on the valerian.

This is a Small White............

........and another.

One of the two Gatekeepers in the garden today.

Here is another tatty individual.

I'm still finding plenty of Silver Y moths in the garden. This one and.......

.........this one were both in the vegetable patch until I disturbed them.

One of quite a few Red-tailed Cuckoo-bees collecting pollen.

Two bees, one largish and the other half its size. Possibly a mining bee left and a sweat bee right.

A video of my two mystery bees and very briefly a third species.

A European Paper Wasp on the buddleia.

I'm coming across this wasp almost daily now.

A Slow-mo video of the European Paper Wasp

A bit of a balancing trick here by a Long Hoverfly.........

...........what it's doing is actually laying eggs along the edge of this leaf.

Here it is having a stretch before flying off to the next leaf.

A Pied Hoverfly (Scaeva pyrastri)

This is a Dead Head Hoverfly (Myathropa florea)

And finally a Goldfinch on the neighbours aerial.