A recent post by fellow naturalist, David on Twitter had my looking at the edges of one of our village ponds this afternoon for a particularly nice looking staph Hygronoma dimidiata.
I was targeting old stands of reed mace (Typha sp.), as it had been mentioned that this particular beetle might be found within. The amount I could actually reach without either doing myself a mischief or getting rather wet was limited. I will return fully wellied up in the near future for another pop.
I brought a few stems back home with me and then proceeded to create a veritable maelstrom of fluffy Typha seeds as I opened up the heads and shaft.
I failed to locate that particular staph but I did pick up two new beetle species. Both widespread and probably just missed previously having never tried this particular technique before.
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| Telmatophilus typhae |
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| Stenus pallitarsis |
Apart from that, it has been a weekend of gardening. Cutting back the huge amounts of bramble and doing a bit of pond maintenance. I almost mowed the lawn but the ground was still a bit too damp. The sun was warm and it felt like spring. Lovely.
gardening must have been the theme of the weekend. I checked my local Typha recently and got not much of anything. I'm sure it was better before. Maybe the weather was too cold
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