The overnight temperatures were running at about 14-15 degrees so I decided to pop on the MV trap on Friday and the Actinic on Saturday. Moth numbers were reasonable and included a rather fresh Eyed Hawkmoth which is not annual in the garden, but it was the beetles which stole the show. An increasingly common occurrence.
It's funny that I now sit and go through the trap first thing and my favourite bit is looking through all the detritus at the bottom for the tiny beetles that just might be there.
Best of the bunch this weekend was a single Dyschirius. I've only ever seen one of this genus before and that was on soft cliffs in Dorset. These are amazing looking things and definitely a genus that I need to go out and target more.
There were plenty of water beetles in the trap including these two Helophorus species. I've only ever knowingly seen H. brevipalpis so it is good to see the larger species most probably H. aequalis.
This afternoon I found a dead blackbird chick that had been removed from the nest. I'm guessing that's what happened as there is an active nest about five metres away and this individual was very underweight for it's age. Presumably it was out-competed by its siblings, died and then was dragged out by a parent. By the time I found it it had some attendant beetles.
I scraped the leaf litter and earth from around it and took a look for beetles. There were a pair of the silphid Thanatophilus rugosus. I've not come across this species before and they were much smaller than I had expected.
There were also some staphs. A few large Aleochara and a Philonthus. I suspect the Aleochara is curtum but will dissect to check. The Philonthus was a female but keys quite readily to P. politus. It has the requisite bronzey sheen to the elytra, as well a suite of other characteristics. The habitat of carrion fits too.
Two other new species for the year, encountered whilst gardening were the longhorn Pseudovadonia livida and the ground beetle Carabus violaceous.
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