CABINET OF CURIOSITIES

    A larder beetle  Dermestes lardarium . This little beetle, about 5mm. long, has a particular liking for laying its eggs on bacon, cooked...

  This tiny rove (staphylinid) beetle, about 5mm. long, found its way into the house, probably on washing dried on the washing line. But it ...

  Low Barns is Durham Wildlife Trust’s largest wetland reserve and the commonest trees there are alders, whose leaves are currently being c...

  Clover leaflets neatly nibbled around their edges, probably by the clover leaf weevil Hypera postica (?)

 There are lots of broad-leaved dock Rumex obtusifolius plants around at the moment with foliage that looks like this, resembling green lac...

  Some more pictures of the dung beetle described in today's Guardian Country Diary ' Deerness Valley, County Durham Waiting for the...

  It's now a 14 years since I first saw a harlequin ladybird in Country Durham, and a decade since I first found one in Teesdale. Yeste...

 The moorlands of Weardale are a sea of purple heather at the moment, often stretching all the way to the horizon. Billions of tiny, nectar-...

This is Ashes quarry, a former limestone quarry near Stanhope in Weardale that is now a wonderful nature reserve. The quarry floor is parti...

I found this ground beetle, which I'm pretty sure is Abax paralellopipedus , in woodland beside Shittlehope burn in Stanhope, Weardale ...

I need to thank Amadan on the wonderful iSpot web site for identifying this strange beetle that I found on heathland in Weardale today.  ...

We found this regurgitated pellet, full of cherry stones, near some wild cherry trees in a field beside the river Tees near Egglestone, at ...