And here's a story about being free

Well, it's all relative isn't it. This week, the lockdown restrictions lifted ever so slightly, so Saturday evening saw me in a field on the Cambridge-Suffolk border in some chalk grassland with a moth trap. Nothing stupid, nowhere too far, and not another soul in sight. I just hope others do similarly and that we don't see another spike in infection rate. Just thinking about being in lockdown during winter puts shivers down my spine......

The temperature was supposed to remain in double figures until gone midnight but it got colder much more quickly. Consequently I saw the sum total of 2 moths plus a few beetles but it didn't matter, it was nice just to be out somewhere different. Listening to the sounds and taking it all in.

Today, I took the kids out of the village and in the car for the first time in two months. We drove all of 3 miles to have a walk and ended up in an old fenland site in amongst the arable. There were a few others out there too but not many and not enough to distract from the relative isolation. There was lots of flowering hawthorn and some dead wood scattered about and the dragonflies and damselflies were patrolling the water margins in numbers.

With two kids in tow there's never enough time for natural history but I did manage to beat a few bits of foliage and was rewarded with a new longhorn species. One that I really should have seen before...Stenocorus meridianus.

There were also lots of the weevil Archarius salicivorus on Salix, which I don't think I'd ever really appreciated how lovely and delicately patterned they are when viewed from the side. They also have a proper weevily proboscis on them.

I also caught one of my favourite beetles, Ischnomera cyanea. Not sure why I like them so much, I guess they are subtly beautiful with the their sculptured elytra and non-garishly metallic colouring. I also see them regularly beating hawthorn but not so often that I become blase about them.

Up close the colour is even more impressive although this image doesn't really do it justice.

Back home I got a garden tick in the form of Chrysolina oricalcia, which was sitting atop a blade of grass while I pulled a few weeds. Although widespread it's another one that I don't see that often. It feeds on umbellifers, so I guess may have emerged from nearby.

And here's the blog title inspiration. A good one to listen to on a sunny day with slightly increasing possibilities....