Port and Wey: 26 Jul 17

Church Ope Cove
Walk number 3 this afternoon which missed out Bumpers Lane Quarry with all that claggy and sticky Portland mud. The rain stopped and the sun came out briefly, but quarries are not good places to walk after heavy rain.

I have now found where Marmalade comes from. Well the hoverfly Episyrphus balteatus, just as you drop down off Wakeham road into the wood at Pennsylvania Castle there is a young Elder tree which was absolutely covered with Marmalade hoverflies, if I said there were 200+ you could have possibly doubled that with the number that were on neighbouring nettles and shrubs. What they were doing on there I have no idea. Some sort of sap/sugar from the leaves. There were black aphids present, were they feeding on the sugary juices excreted from these. Possibly!

There weren't just hoverflies but I noticed a Sawfly and an orange fly amongst other flies which I believe is an Orange Muscid Fly (Phaonia pallida)

Birds seen and heard en-route were 3 House Martins, 2 Swallows, 1 Swift and for the second day running a "finch" with a loud trill. Certainly not something I've heard before.

It certainly wasn't a Greenfinch, which got me thinking that it might be a Serin and sure enough the flight call is very similar. So if you are out about by Rufus Castle and St Andrews Church have a listen for this trill: Flight call Here

Here are a few images from this afternoon:

Walk Number 3 avoiding the quarries

The hoverfly bush. Well we have a butterfly bush in the form of a buddleia, well this Elder was proving to be irresistible to these Marmalade hoverflies and other insects.

Very busy Marmalade Hoverflies on Elder leaves.

A sawfly to identify........

..........possible one of the Allantinae family but as to which one. Unfortunately it flew off before I could any decent photographs of it. As I searched in vain I came across this...............

........bright orange fly........

...........which I reckon is a Phaonia pallida and possibly called the Orange Muscid Fly.

On the way down to the footpath at Pennsylvania Castle I met one of my neighbours, Roger, photographing this Painted Lady taking refuge in his hanging basket. It took us awhile to figure out what it was, as it's underwing pattern had us a bit foxed. I realise now that 99% of the Painted Lady's I've ever seen, have had their wings outstretched. One to remember.

A bit further down Wakeham I noticed this local miner coming out of a pit in a local garden. Good to see that the old methods of extracting minerals are still being carried out on the island.

When I got back home this Ringlet was on the wall........

.......as was the Dark Bush-cricket from this morning......

.......and not to be outdone a Red Admiral was on the other side of the courtyard.

Wakeham
Despite the persistent rain there is always something to find in the garden and unsurprisingly it was snails that took centre stage with Garden Snail (Cornu aspersum) and Yellow-lipped Banded Snails (Cepaea hortensis). A lone Large Red Slug (Arion ater) was the only one I found.

A Dark Bush-cricket (Pholidoptera griseoaptera) made its way across the storage bin for shelter as the rain came down and there were several Marmalade Hoverflies (Episyrphus balteatus) resting up in the flower bed.