Box bug

 

I've seen a couple of these in the garden in the last few days. I love its latin name - gonocerus acuteangulatus. I've seen that described as a perfect example of "Harry Potter" latin.

It was named the box bug because it was originally known only on Box Hill in Surrey, feeding on box trees. It is now known on other hosts and probably comes from the yew tree in my garden.

Today at the pond

Visitors today included a pair of common darter dragonflies, depositing eggs into the water. I was not able to photograph them but I caught their jealous attendant, another darter resting on a nearby perch.

The other visitor is becoming very familiar to me now. My resident grass snake. Today I finally caught it in a picture displaying its forked tongue.

You can see there is plenty of pond weed for it to hide in. I am still hoping the newts survive!

Return visit

It looks like a return visit from our local reptile, none the worse fror its earlier mishap. (See May 18th) It was seen leaving the pond after a morning dip in the very hot weather today.

Interesting insects

 

During a light shower of rain a few days ago I found this cinnabar moth sheltering on a ragwort stem.

Ragwort is the food plant for its caterpillars so the moth may have been laying eggs. I will keep an eye on the plant to see if the caterpillars arrive.

This female stag beetle may have been about to lay eggs too. She was just near to a rotting tree stump which would be just the place for her to deposit a clutch.

A new beetle for me! The violet ground beetle or rain beetle, carabus violaceus.

Both adult and larva feed on slugs and vine weevils so they are very welcome to stay in my garden.

Wildlife in June

There was a surprise for me when I looked in the pond this week.

A newt was sitting on the pond weeds and was in no hurry to go anywhere.

After a few photos I managed to identify it as a palmate newt by the orange stripe which extended along its back.

Then I came across an unusual looking longhorn beetle sitting on a calla lily flower.

It is a spotted longhorn beetle, rutpela maculata. The adults feed on pollen. There was plenty of that on the lily.

And my third surprise was this spectacular moth larva which was feeding on one of my garden mulleins. 

That's a good clue - it's the caterpillar of the mullein moth, most commonly found on the wild mullein plant.

More visitors

The pond was a popular place on this very hot day. There were several of the blue damsels I first saw yesterday, but today at least one pair had formed and egg-laying was taking place. I now know that they are, in fact, azure damselflies, not common blues. A much bigger visitor was a female broad-bodied chaser. She was also occupied laying eggs and never settled. I managed to get a picture of her in flight.
























Another unusual insect caught my attention this afternoon. This is a wasp beetle, clytus arietis. Their larvae live in rotting wood  and the adults eat pollen. They look scary but are completely harmless. They mimic wasps as a way of deterring predators.

Around the Pond

There were a lot of visitors at the pond today. Several large red damselflies had mated and were laying eggs. A few blue damselflies had arrived too - my first of the year.  None of them seemed to be paired yet. One of them is pictured below.

But the biggest surprise was this!

A grass snake had caught itself in the netting and I had to cut it free. It slithered off gratefully into the shrubs around the pond.