Bio Blitz day

Yesterday a group of us, 6 children and many adults met in Millennium Wood to try and record as many insect species as possible, whilst also recording singing birds within the wood. After a couple of hours we made our way to the fire I had lit earlier and cooked sausages and mushrooms with the children enjoying toasting marshmallows on sticks they had whittled. All in all, a successful several hours.
Few photos here of some of the species that we discovered by beating trees and sweep netting the longer grass areas.

Black and Yellow longhorn beetle: Rutpela maculata

Honey bee: Apis mellifera on bramble flower

Marmalade fly. A species of hover fly Episyrphus balteatus

Volucella pellucens: larger hoverfly

Head on with a Volucella pellucens

Another marmalade hoverfly

Pair of mating ringlet butterflies

Ringley butterfly

Azure damselfly

Comma butterfly

Harlequin ladybird.

Probable newly emerged Miris striatus bug

Orange ladybird

Probably hoverfly Syrphus torvus

Meadow brown butterfly

Common Pollen beetle: Meligethes aeneus

House fly: Musca domestica

Flesh fly: Sarcophaga carnaria

In the evening, I set up the moth trap which ran for a short while after dusk. In all, I trapped over 50 moths of 26 species, with a Hypsopygia costalis being a new moth for the year and 19 species being new for Millennium Wood this year.
Of particular note were:
scorpion fly
Emperor dragonfly
Red admiral
blackcap and whitethroat singing.
Roesels bush cricket, a first for this habitat
Large numbers of Meadow brown butterflies.
In total, well in excess of 70 insect species were noted, including a few moths that are either day flying or ones disturbed from their roost, such as Blastodacna hellerella.