Linacre Insects - June 2018

This is my first post of 2018 about the insect life that can be found at Linacre. I had a visit on 1st June when it was a lovely sunny day. I spent some time walking around the ringing site and then walked up to the top reservoir.

During the visit I recorded 3 species of damselfly: Blue-tailed, Common Blue and Large Red. The first 2 species are common around all 3 reservoirs, whilst I only saw 2 Large Reds, 1 by the boardwalk around the top reservoir and 1 in the ringing area.

Large Red Damselfly

I also saw 2 species of Volucella hoverfly, Volucella pellucens and Volucella bombylans, along with 3 other species of hoverfly: Episyrphus balteatus a.k.a. Marmalade Hoverfly, Eristalis nemorum (a dronefly sp), Helophilus pendulus and Myathropa florea.

Volucella pellucens

Volucella bombylans 

Butterflies seen were Common Blue (3 males in the ringing area), and a single Peacock (1 in the ringing area). Moths seen here were Cinnabar Moth (1) and Silver Y (1).

I was down again on Saturday (16th). The weather wasn't so good, so the number of insects was smaller. New species included Red and Black Froghopper, Straw Dot (moth), Yellow Shell (moth) and Black Snipefly.

Black Snipefly