Bottle trapping

A quick bottle trapping session in the water found a couple of Water Boatmen, a few diving beetles as yet unidentified, a newt and a shed load of leeches. The newt I quickly released without photo, hopefully not too much the worse for wear. The water boatmen seem to have expired. Maybe they are quite delicate beasts despite their size. I have a couple of the diving beetles for determination and a couple of leeches out of ghoulish curiosity. I hoped they could be identified but this may take more capability than I have access to at the moment. Let's see.

I was amazed to find anything given the water looks like some kind of white ghastly chemical soup

Hydroporus palustris

The diving beetle turned out to be Hydroporus palustris, according to Nature of fife Coleoptera list the "commonest species of vegetated edges of lochs etc." Sounds fair enough