I follow rivers

Over the last week I've managed to fit in a couple of evening walks along the River Cam. It's been quiet with very few people around and also rather relaxing after a day of home working, home school and general family shenanigans. 

Like most places, the further you get from a car park, the fewer people that can be bothered to make the effort. It was just a bit of a recce as there are a couple of rare beetle species that used to occur in this area and I that I guess might still do so. No sign of either this evening but I'm not quite sure what I'm looking for exactly, so probably need to do some more research...

Whilst enjoying the last of the good weather and having a bit of a poke about I did a little bit of targeted sweeping and beating. First up were the various clumps of dock that peppered the side of the pathway. 

Whilst looking through books and web pages the other night I realised that there was a denizen of dock that I'd not previously recorded and it was a common one too. Two sweeps in and a couple of the quarry species turned up in the net. The weevil Hypera rumicis.

I then turned my attention to the various Salix species that lined the river. There were lots of hemiptera but I mostly ignored those and concentrated on the flea beetles that were numerous in every beaten sample.

There were two species present, Crepidodera plutus on the left with the well defined change in antennal colour and Crepidodera fulvicornis on the right, unicolorous with gradual antennal colour change and a relatively distinct pronotum shape.

The area has lots of potential for later in the season and I even found an absolutely enormous pile of decaying wood chips. I will just need to revisit with my sieving gear another time.

Some suitably relevant and relaxing music, in one of those rare occasions where I think the cover is better than the original.