Exploring the undergrowth

I spent a couple of hours last week, on a warm, humid afternoon, exploring the undergrowth at Deepdale Nature Reserve in Barnard Castle. The boggy ground on either side of the footpath was overgrown with butterburr leaves, meadowsweet, vetches, red campion and docks and was seething with insects and spiders.  These are a few that I managed to capture on camera. 

Earwig  - for more about earwigs click here

Female scorpionfly

Male scorpionfly - for more about scorpionflies click here

The beautifully iridescent green dock leaf beetle  - for more about this species click here

A sawfly that I haven't managed to ID for sure yet - for more sawflies click here 

A spider, Tetragnatha extensa, with a golden abdomen. For more spiders click here.

A very bug-eyed mayfly - possibly Ephemera danica. For more on mayflies click here.

A common green capsid bug Lygocoris pabulinus - for more on capsid bugs click here

A staphylinid beetle stretching its wings....

..... curling up its tail in characteristic defensive mode ....

..... and with its wings packed away, showing the extremely short wing cases. For more staphylinid beetles click here

Garden visitors

Some recent garden insect visitors during the last week. Thanks to Africa Gomez, author of the always fascinating BugBlog for IDing some of these for me.

I think this hoverfly, that had a conspicuously loud buzz and frequently returned to the same sunny spot when disturbed, is a narcissus fly Merodon equestris. Probably its larvae are even now feeding on our daffodil bulbs.

I think this is a small cuckoo bee (Nomada sp.?) visiting a Welsh poppy

An azure damselfly that hatched from our garden pond - didn't know until then that they were breeding there

A large hoverfly, identified for me by Africa Gomez as Myathropa florea

A sawfly Arge ustulata, whose larvae feed on the leaves of various hedgerow trees and shrubs

Two froghopper larvae that were inadvertently separated from their frothy 'cuckoo spit' when I was weeding the garden. They quickly blew some more bubbles.

An exquisitely metallic hoverfly soldier fly with interference colours in its eyes (thanks to Africa Gomez for the ID)

The solitary bee Osmia rufa collecting pollen and nectar from the poached egg plant Limnanthes douglasii. You can see here how they collect pollen on the underside of their abdomen. Thanks to Africa Gomez for the correct ID.

The Fraught Courtship of Wolf Spiders

Thurday's Guardian Country Diary is a description of the courtship of wolf spiders

The low stone wall along our garden path is a favourite haunt of wolf spiders, like this male that has caught and is eating a fly. Wolf spiders don't make webs - they stalk their prey, so any fly landing on the sun-warmed stones is taking a big risk.

The male wolf spiders detect the presence of females while they are still hidden in the undergrowth - there must be some scent communication. As soon as the males detect a possible mate they begin signalling with the black palps on either side of their head - left,.....

..... then right, alternately ..... then he lowers both and vibrates his front pair of legs, before repeating the whole performance which can go on for hours

The female is larger than the male and very aggressive, so he creeps up on her a little at a time, attempting to pacify her and mate. She repeatedly chases him away, but he doesn't give up.

Here he's captured her attention and is signalling furiously with those palps ...

...... and edges closer. Eventually, when he has her confidence, he transfers sperm to her with those brush-like palps ...

...and then she appears with her egg case attached to the tip of her abdomen, speeding up incubation by sunbathing on the warm stones. Eventually.........




..... she appears with the hatched spiderlings attached to her abdomen. They'll cling to her for a few days until they can fend for themselves.

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