Bee aggressive, bee bee aggressive

Another good lunch break at Cullaloe took me over the 250 with some nice big bees and a new/not-new fly. Fly first, since I need to explain. Hydromya dorsalis was in the list of diptera for the reserve but somehow never made it to the total list, so it was recorded, but not counted. Anyway, now it's both and I get to count it as an addition. This was swept on damp pathside, so not a Willow hit.

An actual addition was Andrena clarkella, a female of which evaded me several times the other day, but which I was able to nail down today. Shocking pictures, sadly. However some other new additions today of nice, easy-to-identify with live pictures.

Bombus hypnorum, Tree Bumblebee

Bombus lapidarius, Red-tailed

Saltus scenicus, where it always in when it's sunny

Kidney-spot Ladybird. Not new, but numerous

Tachina ursina. One of my favourites

So here are today's additions, taking us over the quarter way mark to 1k.

249 380 hymen Bombus pascuorum Common Carder Bee

250 380 hymen Bombus lapidarius   Red-tailed Bumblebee

251 170 spider Saltus scenicus         Zebra spider

252 340 diptera Cheilosia grossa       A hover fly

253 340 diptera Meliscaeva auricollis A hoverfly

254 R 340 diptera Hydromya dorsalis     A Snail-killing Fly

255 R 380 hymen Andrena clarkella       Clarke's Mining Bee

256 340 diptera Anatopynia plumipes  A non-biting midge

257 370 butterfly Aglais urticae          Small Tortoiseshell

Salix in Wonderland

I spent a happy lunchtime getting a crick in my neck to look at Salix catkins yesterday, mostly trying to avoid the 100s of honey bees that I think have something to do with the reserve's neighbour.

It seemed to take forever this year to have any open catkins but finally "project tussock" has been overtaken by "project catkin". Yesterday a reasonable collection of flies was made, with many more duplicates not taken or released after ID. Papilio binoculars help no end in identifying target beasts and body-swerving the others.

All from Salix so far have been:

Scathophagidae: Scathophaga stercoraria

Calliphoridae: Calliphora vicina 

Polleniidae: Pellenia rudis

Syrphidae: Melangyna lasiophthalma, Melangyna quadromaculata, Eristalis pertinax

Muscidae: Eudasyphora cyanella, Muscina levida, Phaonia tuguriorum

Anthomyiidae: Egle ciliata.

Tahcinidae: Tachina ursina

I've probably forgotten some (and no mention of bees, beetles, moths). Anyway, also first butterflies were two hyperactive Peacocks, one of which took a shine to the kite net while I was checking a specimen

And swept from grass was one of my faves - Stenocranus minutus

I thought I might reach the 250 mark last night, but it wasn't to be. With only two species required it will almost certainly be today.

Moffs plus

 Finally the moth challenge got some air under its wings and rose off the ground. I set the actinic heath trap up last night and then had a look at the salix catkins, which were happily being feasted on by a usual early spring collection of Common Quaker, Hebrew Character and Satellite moths, An Agonopterix heracliana was netted on the way along the path. This morning the trap held three of my target species - Yellow Horned. The moth total is now up to a monster 8 species. That's nearly double figures!

Yesterday was good during the day, too, with sunny tree trunks hosting Kidney-spot Ladybird and the same Salix (only one's really in flower, accessibly anyway) hosted Melangyna quadrimaculata.

Kidney-spot

M.quadrimaculata

Yearlist stands at 240 species of inverts now. The full list is on the yearlist tab - here

Latest category counts

On the realisation of 300 dipteran species, it's a good time to post the latest breakdown by category. In addition to a 300 landmark for flies this record also makes the number of additions this year (77) equal to the whole of that for 2020.

Class	Count
alga	1
Protist other	0
slime mould	5
lichen	64
fungus	313
liverwort	16
moss	83
flowering plant	307
conifer	2
fern	11
cnidarian	0
mollusc	31
bryozoan	0
annelid	7
flatworm	1
harvestman	11
pseudoscorpion	1
spider	86
gall mite	7
tick	1
millipede	13
centipede	5
crustacean	7
collembola	13
bristletail	0
odonata	7
dermaptera	1
orthoptera	1
hemiptera	81
coleoptera	185
diptera	300
lep-moth	384
lep-butterfly	18
hymenoptera	61
insect-other	36
tunicate	0
echinoderm	0
invert-other	0
fish	5
reptile	1
amphibian	3
bird	141
mammal	16
	2225

Retro fly addition makes 300

While searching for something completely unrelated I found a reference to two recordings of Campichoeta obscuripennis in the 2018 Dipterists Digest. I was sure I had recorded it, too, but it wasn't on my reserve species list. So it was recorded in 2017, 2018 and 2020. When I say "recorded", I see no actual record in the public sphere of the first two. Such is the battle of fly recording.

Here's a pic of the one I had in 2020

That brings the Cullaloe total for Diptera to a semi-respectable 300 species. Since this is already old and overlooked, the recent anthomyiid Lasiomma seminitidum would have been species 300.

Dipterists Digest link:

https://www.dipterists.org.uk/sites/default/files/pdf/Dipterists%20Digest%202018%20volume%2025%20part%202.pdf

What stinks and sounds like a bell?

Dung!

An attempt to prod around some sheep poo yesterday turned up numbers of Aphodius sphacelatus, one of which was retrieved from a bucket of water before the rest emerged from gathered poo. Only other thing I had was a small staph, as yet undetermined. And this Tachyporus, which I shamefully forgot because I potted it in the field.

2021 Beetle #82 - Aphodius sphacelatus

2021 Beetle #83 - Tachyporus nitidulus

male, gendetted

Unexpected new mollusc - Cornu aspersum

This morning, while on a brief trip to pick up something that was left for me, I turned a rock and photographed the routine Cornu aspersum, that I expected to find along the walls of the reserve.

The surprise element of this is that when I came to copy the species line from the "complete list" tab of my spreadsheet to the "2021 list" tab it turned out it didn't exist! So Cornu aspersum is a new mollusc, the second new snail of the year.

Since I'm in mollusc world, here's another recent 2021 addition, and one of my favourite land molluscs - Hedgehog Slug.