Assassin's Creed

I was out checking the moth trap last night. It was a very warm and muggy evening and there was lots of general insect activity. As I turned to come back in the house, a sudden movement from the wall of the house caught my eye.

It looked quite big and my first thought was that it was a longhorn beetle.

I potted it and soon realised it was a hemipteran (a true bug) with its piercing mouthparts.

A quick search revealed it to be Reduvius personatus, one of the Reduviidae otherwise known as Assassin Bugs. These are predominantly a tropical group of insects but there are 7 species that can be found in the UK.

Reduvius personatus is found around human habitation and feeds on a range of associated insects such as bedbugs, silverfish, booklice and flies.

Can't quite believe that I've never knowingly seen one before!

A new arrival...

This turned up in the post today

I have about 10 species of spiders on my list so this may go some way to inspire me to look a little more closely at some the easier ones to identify.

This book is good at pointing out the limitations of field ID of many/most species but it could help in getting to family or genus for many spiders that you'd potentially find.

Having said that I have enough on my plate trying to get to grips with beetles so I suspect this may only make brief appearances from the shelf over the coming months.

We will see. Looks very nice though.

What a difference a week makes...

I was recently chatting to a fellow beetler who reminded me of a section in the Coleopterists handbook about how to attract species of beetles that utilise the various stages of decaying carcasses. The idea implanted and I decided to have a go. What's the worse that could happen?

The perfect receptacle seemed to be an old Cambridgeshire Council recycling box filled up with about 4-5 inches of sand (courtesy of B&Q).

All I needed now was a body.....any body.

Over the following few days I came across lots of dead badgers and a couple of muntjac, all of which were just too big for the box. What a I really needed was a rabbit......

But just when I really needed one, rabbits at the perfect point of death were non existent. However fate was at hand as I drove to the tip one Saturday and saw what appeared to be a dead duck by the side of the road.

On the return trip (much to the embarrassment of my son) I stopped and examined the freshly dead female Mallard. The apparent victim of hit and run. In to the car she went and once home, she was lovingly placed on the bed of sand. 

I then covered the box with some plastic chicken wire and attached it firmly to the box to prevent any foxes or badgers making off with my hard won quarry!

All that was left to do was wait......

A week went by and the temperatures weren't too high. I went to check the duck which had now been christened 'Donald' despite the obvious sexual misnomer.

A few blowflies were on the carcass but when I turned it a small beetle tried to hide in the sand (what appears to be a histerid(?) but need some further work to ID). This was potted and the duck was returned to its resting state.

A week later (today) and on returning home after 3 rather lovely days on the Gower peninsula in south Wales (more on that later) I decided to check on 'Donald'.........

Wow, almost no flesh left and a writhing mass of thousands of maggots.

A bit of a more thorough investigation revealed 3 (possibly 4) species of staph which have now all been collected to put under the 'scope for IDing. Let's hope that goes better than some of my previous goes at staphs......

Just to give you the full immersive experience. Here's a short video (plus guest appearing staph)!!

A big pile of sh*t

Picture the scene, a family walk through the Suffolk Sandlings, Willow Warblers singing and the sun beating down on our heads (well that last bit is an exaggeration).

Suddenly there in the middle of the bridleway is a fresh, steaming pile of horse manure. What to do?

Grab a small stick and start poking about, that's what!

Quickly found this fella, a male Onthophagus similis. 

Before I could find much else there was the call of 'snake!' from the kids up ahead. So put the stick down and had to go marshall the viewing of an adder!

Alexanders the not so great

I spent last weekend in the glorious count of Suffolk. We were based a fair way inland but seemed to gravitate coastwards most days.

I took my actinic moth trap which proved pretty much a waste of time apart form a record of what surprisingly appears to be a lifer, Lunar Marbled Brown Drymonia ruficornis. 

I even had a go at identifying some plants (shock horror) as I've been really slack at recording these and consequently have no real idea of how many I've even seen in the UK.

By far the easiest was Alexanders Smyrnium olusatrum an invasive member of the umbellifer family. It was on every road side verge as we walked near Orford and was attracting a fair number of flies and hovers. This plant apparently originates from the Canary Isles and is slowly spreading west and north as the climate gets warmer.

Its original name meant ‘Parsley of Alexandria’ which was changed to Alexanders at a later date. It was introduced to Britain by the Romans, as its stems, leaves and flowers are 'apparently' all edible (raw or cooked) and have a flavour not unlike celery.

Spring time spectacle

Work took me on a trip to Snettisham RSPB reserve last week to do some filming. Situated on the Wash, it's not somewhere I know very well so I was rather looking forward to it.

The first 3 hours involved standing in the p*ssing rain and it was also very cold, especially given it was the end of April. Pretty miserable. The rain eventually cleared and we were treated to some exceptional 'big skies' and spectacular cloud formations.

There was also lots of wildlife. Med Gulls and Short-eared owl were nice to see but it was the waders that really delivered. Thousands of Knot, Dunlin and Black-tailed Godwit interspersed with several other species gradually amassed as the tide came in before making the hop over our heads on to the safety of the pits to roost.

The following video doesn't quite do the spectacle justice!