Linacre Insects - 3rd June 2022

 The sun came out on Friday afternoon, so I popped down to Linacre in the hope of seeing some insects.

The first ones I saw were Common Blue, Azure and Blue-tailed Damselflies. 

Common Blue Damselfly

Butterflies seen were: Small Copper (1), Meadow Brown (1), Common Blue (1), Comma (1), Green-veined White (1), Holly Blue (1), Large White (3) and Brimstone (1 male). 1 Nemophora degeerella was also seen.

Hoverflies were far and few between, but one Helophilus pendulus and 1 Volucella bombylans were seen.

Helophilus pendulus (and friend!)

Birds seen were: Mallard (83; 52 adults and 31 ducklings), Moorhen (18; 5 adults and 13 young), Coot (20; 6 adults and 9 young), Tufted Duck (17 adults), Mandarin Duck (29; 13 adults and16 ducklings), Grey Wagtail (3), Great-crested Grebe (7; 4 adults and 3 juveniles), Little Grebe (1 adult), Herring Gull (1 adult) and Lesser Black-backed Gull (9; 6 adults and 3 younger birds (not this year's juveniles). 

7 Birds!

I was back down at Linacre at 5.00 am on Saturday morning, for my first mist net ringing session there since the start of May. As you can seen from the blog title, the session was a very quiet one, with just 7 birds ringed, consisting of 3 Blackcaps (2 new and a re trap), 1 Chiffchaff ( a new bird that had been born this year), 2 Great Tits (1 retrap and 1 new juvenile bird), and 1 Blue Tit (another of this year's juveniles).

After the ringing session I stayed on for a couple of hours to look at the insects, and spotted a male Common Blue Butterfly, several Common Blue Damselflies,  a Meadow Brown, Red-tailed, White-tailed and Common Carder Bees, Drone Flies, Myathropea florea, (a species of hoverfly), a Bloodvein moth, a sheildbug and a species of Long-horned moth called Nemophora degeerella!

Bloodvein

Nemophora degeerella

Myathropea florea

Linacre insects and breeding birds

Despite a pretty poor weather forecast, I decided to pop down to Linacre this morning for a few hours. As always, I'm glad I did, as I added a new species of micro moth to the list, and also managed to gather evidence of breeding success for another species of bird.

First up the moth. As I was walking along the path at the bottom of the top reservoir I spotted a small moth with very long antennae  flying around a tree. I watched it land and managed to get a couple of photos. Checking my book at home I found out it's called Nemophora degeerella, a species belonging to the Adelidae family (known colloquially as Longhorns), which is made up of 15 species in the UK. It's common throughout England, so I expect I'll see more examples later in the year (details here).

Nemophora degeerella

 

There weren't many other insects about (that I could photograph or identify!), but I did spot this Red and Black Froghopper. This is a common species at Linacre and I see them on most visits during the summer.

 

Red and Black Froghopper

 

Away from the insects, I spotted 5 broods of Mallards, 3 broods of Coots and 2 new Great-crested Grebe chicks on the top reservoir. This means both pairs of grebes have successfully hatched chicks this year, which is brilliant news. The new species with young this morning was Grey Wagtail. 2 adults and one chick were seen around the middle reservoir, which again, is great news after the predation of the nest on the top reservoir.