I took a sip from my devil's cup

So having returned from Devon, the post holiday low has kicked in and and has been accompanied by temperatures of 30 degrees centigrade. Not a great combination for motivation...

I stuck two light traps on last night hoping for some extensive beetle bycatch but it was surprisingly poor. A few of the usual suspects and nothing small and interesting. The moths however delivered for the first time this year, giving one lifer and several very seldom seen species.

Highlight for me was my second garden record of Goat Moth. The first and only other was back in 2014, so it was nice to get and see another one.

New for me was this Round-winged Muslin. A small moth that initially had me reaching for the micro book before I realised what I was actually looking at.

I've only recorded Short-cloaked Moth on a couple of occasions before and both were last year. This was accompanied by a Kent Black Arches which was only the second garden record. 

This afternoon was too hot to do much so I retreated to the my 'study' and had a crack at some some of the specimens I had brought home from Devon. First up was this wasp that had flown into the house.

I originally wrongly assumed it was an ichneumon given the size of its ovipositer but was soon corrected. It is in fact a wasp in the genus Gasteruption. There are only 5 species recorded from the UK with G jaculator being the most common one but I wanted to key it through and Tim S on the Facebook group kindly provided a key for me to run it through

Up close, it's an amazing looking creature. To take it further I first needed to see whether it had a raised and reflexed collar at the back of the head.

You can see in the above that it does. This combined with the fact that its ovipositer is longer than the abdomen eliminates 2 of the five species. Next I needed to see whether there was a depession in front of the collar. 

The images shows that it doesn't making this G. jaculator as expected. Good to confirm and a new species for me. I don't currently have many wasps to my name. 

I also had a couple of flies potted up which I reckon I had a fair crack at IDing plus I knew they were both in the Stubbs and Drake Soldierflies book.

For this first one I eyeballed the plates and reckon I had one of the Therevidae. As the eyes were separated on top of the head I had a female. The first part of the key asks you to look for the presence black hairs on the tergites and sternites. This one had a few in amongst the more numerous pale hairs.

Next up I needed to check whether the dark shining patches between the eyes reached anywhere near the front ocellus. The ocelli are the 3 black dots on the forehead. The band here is well removed from the ocellus.

Finally, pale halteres and 3 rows of anteroventral bristles on the femur mean that this is Thereva nobilitata aka the Common Stiletto, the most common and widespread of the stiletto flies. 

The last of today's flies was another Tabanus horsefly that had come to my actinic light trap. This bad boy (for a male it is) keyed easily and simply to Tabanus bromius, the Band-eyed Brown Horsefly. A common species in southern England but a new species for me.

Wow, two flies IDd in a matter of minutes. I know they are big and easy ones but still feels like a small step forward. Might have to crack out some of the harder ones!

The post title inspiration is a little bit of perfect pop. An addictively brilliant song. #FreeBritney