A fly for a sunny day

A pretty sight on a September day! This hoverfly is known as the sun fly (helophilus pendulus).

It spent some time feeding from the Michaelmas daisies. They are at their peak this week so the sun flies are probably happy.

Their larvae are some of the "long tailed" maggots that are found in very wet situations - marshy ground, wet compost heaps or buckets of water with rotting vegetation inside. Leave some around if you want more of these pollinators.

An invader!

It's another bug but this one is an American! The western conifer seed bug, leptoglossus occidentalis, arrived in Europe in 1999 and immigrants have been reported on the south coast of England since 2008. This one is the first recorded in this part of Sussex. Apparently they live on pines and there are lots of those in Heath Common, where I found it.

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.