Warm grass around you

So I added fresh grass clippings to the pile on Saturday and popped to have a look at lunchtime to see what was happening. The grass and bacteria were doing their thing and it was too hot to put my hand in to any real depth. In the outer cooler layer there was a fair bit of beetle action. Mainly staphs such as Lithocharis ochracea, Philonthus varians, P. jurgans and P. discoideus.

On the first sieve, this monster (15mm) turned up. Ontholestes murinus. It's the first time I've seen one in the UK. They are absolutely stunning creatures and move incredibly quickly, much more so than other big staphs I've seen. They are predators and it will have been scouring the heap for prey. The other species in this genus tessellatus is even bigger and has pale legs. I'd never realised before that they have patterend scutellum. I'm amazed at the stuff that keeps turning up.

Other recent additions to the garden list are a rather battered Leptacinus pusillus sieved from the heap.

The rather lovely Rugilus angustatus. This is confined to the south east and is much bigger than the more commonly encountered members of this genus. They all have the amazing narrow neck though. I've only seen this once before at Wicken Fen.

Last but not least is this Lobrathium multipunctum which was running around the the freshly dug earth of my new pond. I've only seen this once before in north Norfolk on soft cliff whilst twitching Nebria livida. It apparently likes very early successional habitats, of which my pond is prime example! How the heck did it find it though?

Today's post title inspiration comes from Underworld's third album Beaucoup Fish. It reminds me of living in Australia and seeing parrots everyday. That all seems like a long time ago....