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.
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| Black and Yellow longhorn beetle: Rutpela maculata |
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| Honey bee: Apis mellifera on bramble flower |
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| Marmalade fly. A species of hover fly Episyrphus balteatus |
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| Volucella pellucens: larger hoverfly |
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| Head on with a Volucella pellucens |
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| Another marmalade hoverfly |
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| Pair of mating ringlet butterflies |
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| Ringley butterfly |
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| Azure damselfly |
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| Comma butterfly |
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| Harlequin ladybird. |
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| Probable newly emerged Miris striatus bug |
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| Orange ladybird |
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| Probably hoverfly Syrphus torvus |
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| Meadow brown butterfly |
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| Common Pollen beetle: Meligethes aeneus |
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| House fly: Musca domestica |
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| 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.
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