Port and Wey: 26 Jun 20

Penns Wood, St Andrew's Church Grounds, Penn's Weare, Penn's Copse, Church Ope Cove, Perryfields Butterfly Reserve and Old Quarry Track

Today it was back to our normal walk, down to the cove and then back through Perryfields Butterfly Reserve. It was a much cooler and cloudier day compared to yesterdays heatwave, and it was pretty windy to.

However there were some good highlights, including a Large Tortoiseshell seen and photographed at Perryfields Butterfly Reserve. Unfortunately not by me, but I did see the photograph of a pristine LT, taken by a guy from Devon late morning.

My highlights were a few firsts for the year with a Gatekeeper butterfly, a Common Red Soldier Beetle and a Wasp-mimic Hoverfly. However I also had some newbies for my Portland insect list with a Two-banded Wasp Hoverfly (Chrysotoxum bicinctum) and a Large Gorse Mining Bee (Andrena bimaculata)

Here are a few images and a video from today:

You would excused if you thought this was a wasp, but in fact it is a Wasp-mimic Hoverfly (Chrysotoxum cautum). This hoverfly was resting on the leaves of a Japonica in Penns Wood. And guess what I have just found out that this is a Variable Wasp Hoverfly (Chrysotoxum elegans). Not one I have heard of before and very similar to C. cautum. Thank you to Phil Saunders for the correction.

The grounds of St Andrew's Church. There wasn't a lot here as the breeze was coming straight of the sea and into church grounds.

Sadly I only managed the one photograph but it is a Large Gorse Mining Bee (Andrena bimaculata) and another Andrena bee to add to the ever growing bee list here on Portland.

These 2 Rose Chafers are on a buddleia. Normally they are pretty active, but the cool conditions seems to have made them very docile.

Well its a spider, but which one. One of the Orb-weavers maybe!!

One of the Tachinidae family of flies. Lots of very similar looking species in the group.

Church Ope Cove and..................

............behind the huts and out of the wind I came across..........

.............a Slow-worm and a few woodlice for company.

This is a Narcissus Bulb Fly (Merodon equestris). It is a hoverfly which mimics bumblebees and comes in a variety of colour forms.

This is Biting Stonecrop, Sedum acre is just coming into flower along Penn's Weare.

Having heard and seen the evidence of the Large Tortoiseshell, I continued my walk around Perryfields Butterfly Reserve. No luck with LT, but I did find this..........

..............Downland Conch moth (Aethes tesserana) and a new moth for me on Portland>

And not for the first time, when I got back home and started to edit the images, I realised there was a Six-spot Burnet moth caterpillar in the background. And yet again no sign of any adult moths!!

This is a Roesel's Bush-cricket (Metrioptera roeselii) with a pink hue, which got me thinking that the colouration might be caused by erythrism, an unusual and little-understood genetic mutation caused by a recessive gene, similar to that which affects albino animals. This mutation results in one of two things happening or even a combination of the two; a reduce or even absence of the normal pigment and/or the excessive production of other pigments, in this case red which results in pink morphs". A couple of years back I came across a pink Meadow Grasshopper Here.

I might not have found the large Tortoiseshell, but I did find my first ever Two-banded Wasp Hoverfly (Chrysotoxum bicinctum) in the butterfly reserve. a very striking hoverfly.

Having left the butterfly reserve it was over the old railway bridge between the Easton and Wakeham cuttings.

Along here I came across my first Common Red Soldier Beetle of the year. In fact it was the only seen, but give it a few days and there will hundreds.

And my first Gatekeeper of the year. This was a record shot of it with its wings open and then it........

........closed them as I adjusted the focus.

Believe it or not Ted is watching a Sparrowhawk being mobbed by 4 Carrion Crows.

Birds Recorded: 2 Cormorant, Sparrowhawk, Kestrel, Herring Gull, Great Black-backed Gull, Wood Pigeon, Collared Dove, Swift, Dunnock, Robin, Blackbird, Long-tailed Tit, Great Tit, Blue Tit, Wren, Magpie, Carrion Crow, Jackdaw, Raven, House Sparrow, Chaffinch and Goldfinch

Butterflies Recorded: Large White, Ringlet, Meadow Brown, Gatekeeper, Marbled White and Red Admiral

Moths Recorded: Downland Conch (Aethes tesserana)

Bees Recorded: Honey Bees (Apis mellifera), Early Bumblebee (Bombus pratorum), Buff-tailed Bumblebee (Bombus terrestris), Common Carder (Bombus pascuorum), Red-tailed Bumblebee (Bombus lapidarius) and a Large Gorse Mining Bee (Andrena bimaculata).

Hoverflies Recorded: Marmalade Hoverfly (Episyrphus balteatus), Long Hoverfly (Sphaerophoria scripta), Common Dronefly (Eristalis tenax) Narcissus Bulb Fly (Merodon equestris), Two-banded Wasp Hoverfly (Chrysotoxum bicinctum), Variable Wasp Hoverfly (Chrysotoxum elegans) and a Pied Hoverfly (Scaeva pyrastri)

Flies, Craneflies, Gnats and Midges Recorded: Dagger Fly (Empis tessellata), Muscid Fly sp. and a Tachinidae sp.

Crickets and Grasshoppers Recorded: Dark Bush-cricket nymphs (Pholidoptera griseoaptera) and a Roesel's Bush-cricket (Metrioptera roeselii)

Bugs and Beetles Recorded: Swollen-thighed Beetle (Oedemera nobilis), 2 Rose Chafer (Cetonia aurata) and Common Red Soldier Beetles (Rhagonycha fulva)

Spiders Recorded: Possible Orb-weaver sp.

Moth Caterpillars Recorded: Six-spot Burnet Moth

Wakeham

In the back garden late afternoon I came across a couple of moths, the first a Small Dingy Tubic (Borkhausenia fuscescens), the next a Powdered Knot-horn (Delplanqueia dilutella), my first Earwig on Portland and a small beetle to be ID'd.