A very busy month of entomology - summer has finally arrived.
What happened to the insects?
Chris Raper addresses the question - where are they? And the answer is: it's complicated - a combination of factors rather than a single clause:
- Weather: the wet/cold start to the year
- Climate: a decade of extreme weather
- Habitat:
- Habitat loss
- Habitat degradation
- Habitat fragmentation
Thankfully, he also has the solutions, which are do-able, although unfortunately, the powers that be seem uninterested...
My Journal, July 2024
02.vii.2024
A short walk to the Washbrook yielded a Water Scorpion nymph, which I was aware were there, half a dozen species of water beetle, and what appear to be Water Cricket nymphs, which were a surprise. Must go back in a month and check for adults.
05.vii.2024
Another local trip to sample the Washbrook further upstream. In spite of the damage done by the Environment Agency, I found quite a good range of invertebrates. It was also good to see Meadow Brown and Ringlet in the garden after the winds of the last few days.
08.vii.2024
A visit to Holwell with the intention of targeting the ponds, but I couldn't resist a trawl through the quarry en route. This was the right decision as it turned up a specimen of Hoplomachus thunbergii, the second record for VC55. Later, the ponds along the mineral line proved productive for beetles, although less so for bugs.
11.vii.2024
Spent the afternoon working on some water beetles. When I was done, I looked at a small bug found on the kitchen windowsill in the morning. This turned out to be Psallus flavellus, only the second record for VC55 (the first being three days ago).
12.vii.2024
Following a recent conversation I knocked together a rain shield for the moth trap out of a piece of polycarbonate twinwall and bungee cords. The rain shield worked great, the only problem was the moths - 13/6 on a warm, wet, cloudy night in July. Worse still, the bycatch was zero - not a single beetle, bug, caddis or midge. Desperate times.
14.vii.2024
A morning trip to Launde. Mostly cloudy but quite a lot of butterflies if nothing exotic. A good range of bugs although there are still plenty of nymphs around for later.
17.vii.2024
Flying ant day. In the face of repeated kitchen invasions and the absence of my hypothetical pet anteater, I've resorted to nematodes.
18.vii.2024
Finally, moths - 105/31, which is my best total for a couple of years. Emptying the trap felt like the good old days. Most notable were two female Ringed China-mark, Parapoynx stratiotata, new for the garden.
19.vii.2024
An early morning trip to Croft Hill to beat the heat. Not up before the Lark, but up before the Small Skippers, giving good opportunities for close inspection of the roosting sleepy-heads. The number of butterflies was delightful, in particular lots of Marbled Whites, and 9 species in total.
22.vii.2024
A cooler, slightly windy night so I wasn't too unhappy with 28/12 in the moth trap. Now the new government is easing relations with Europe it's good to see Diamond Backs and Silver Y return.
Rather belatedly I have started doing garden FIT Counts as a nice low carbon way of recording. https://ukpoms.org.uk/fit-
23.vii.2024
A trip to Narborough Bog, where dipping in the Soar proved very unproductive, but sweep netting turned up a few nice specimens, including Pilophorus clavatus and Psallus haematodes.
24.vii.2024
I'm really annoyed! Sorting through the bugs from Narborough Bog yesterday I found a nice red Anthocoris, and moreover it was a male. After some mental gymnastics (discarding all the exotic possibilities) I realised it had to be A. confusus or A. simulans, so I dissected it. A quick glance at the aedeagus confirmed this but then... When I was transferring it to a slide to check, it simply disappeared. For once, I didn't manage to ping it off the needle across the room, it simply vanished somewhere between picking it up and putting it on the slide. This really annoyed me, so I spent an hour looking for it - without success.
26.vii.2024
47/21 in the moth trap, not too bad. Limited by-catch but some interesting looking Caddis.
27.vii.2024
Sorting through some samples I was sent to identify it was good to find Orthotylus ochrotrichus. We have essentially no records for this, but only because no-one bothers to disentangle the green Mirids.
28.vii.2024
A very pleasant trip to Great Merrible (after a failed attempt in the spring when it was simply too wet to get there). I found an excellent range of insects, of which the pick were Halticus luteicollis, only one previous record, from Ketton, and even better was Dicyphus pallidus, swept from Enchanter's Nightshade. It took a bit of detective work to confirm this one, but this is undoubtedly the first record for VC55 (although Dicyphus in general are hugely under-recorded). Orius laticollis was also the first record for VC55.
30.vii.2034
FIT count on Knapweed scored 19, a few too many Honeybees but a steady procession of leafcutters.
31.vii.2024
74/26 in the moth trap, and for the first time this year, lots of micros. I think the thing I like best about moths is the names: Burnished Copper, Clover Case-bearer, Holly Tortrix, Lettuce Tortrix, Thistle Marble - all new for the garden.
The squirrels have discovered the cob nuts so we've had to pick them all green.
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