When you thought something was yellow

Helophilus pendulus hoverfly, which you would normally think was yellow...

Gold Swift

This nice Gold Swift was fond clinging to the underside of smoe Meadowsweet at lunchtime. The second time this species has been found in almost the same place - a fern feeder

This prompted the discovery of two species missing from the moth list which had definitely been recorded before, the other being Map-winged Swift.

This takes us to 1480 - 20 species away from the 1500 target!

Lejogaster metallina

A nice new hoverfly for the reserve and along with Pipizella viduata makes up the new total of 61 hoverflies. the fly target of 130 species has now been passed and only we are only 22 species away from the target of 1500 species overall.

Gall mites

An Alnus beside the pond was particularly badly affected by gall mites with a large patch of leaves standing out. Two of them were not on the reserve list so good news for the mites and for the catalogue. Not so good for the tree!

Mompha propinquella - moth #209

Moth species number 209 for the reserve leaves us one short of the target for the year with 6 months to go. Flies also are only 1 species away from a target of 130. Both will surely exceed the target.

With 32 species to go until the big 1500 it's likely that target will be exceeded by some margin. Hopefully!