Hovering above zero

I've seen very hoverflies this year so far. I guess because the spring has been so cold. We have had several frosts over the last week which is playing havoc with blossom and especially my emerging asparagus.

Wednesday was warm and sunny and a walk along the river Cam to Grantchester revealed a few hovers - mainly Eristalis and Syrphus.

This one I found in the garden last weekend and is a new one for me. The shape, yellow scutellum and the fact the abdomen is longer than the wings make this Sphaerophoria scripta.

Here's to hoping the temperatures pick up soon!

A new hover...

...for me.

And it's a really common one. But to be fair this year is the first that I've really paid attention to them.

This little beauty is Rhingia campestris and is a fairly distinctive beast. With its long snout it's really only confusable with R. rostrata. The more orange abdomen, dark central line and lateral margins mean this is campestris.

Return of the Titans

Moth trapping on Tuesday night proved pretty disastrous with only three moths of three species.

The only saving grace was the appearance of the first hawkmoth of the year... a slightly balding Privet! 

A quick trip out to Wicken Fen yesterday was rather quiet but punctuated by some lovely weather. Good views of a hunting Marsh Harrier and calling cuckoos and Cetti's Warbler were the best of the birds.

This Sericomyia silentis was the best of the few insects I managed to see whilst steering a small child along the boardwalks.

Garden odds and ends...

As tomorrow is looking a little iffy on the weather front, I had a day catching up with gardening chores.

Most of the day was spent mowing with occasionally pauses to pot insects that I came across.

The pick of today's bunch were a Helophilus pendulus hoverfly, a Scorpionfly Panorpa spp. and a Red-headed Cardinal Beetle Pyrochroa serraticornis

Helophilus pendulus

Scorpionfly Panorpa spp

Red-headed Cardinal Beetle Pyrochroa serraticornis

Garden hovers

Whilst mowing the lawn today, I decided to carry my net and take the odd swipe at any hovers I saw. There were at least 4 species and I managed to catch and pot two of them. A short time in the fridge and I could photograph them (albeit badly)

Eristalis pertinax

Syrphus sp.

Spring has sprung

The first macros in the moth trap last night. Two Hebrew Characters. They were both under the last egg box I turned over and had almost consigned myself to another blank.

Spent the day in the garden tidying up a few things and managed a few new insects for the year. Two Small Tortoiseshells, a Brimstone and a Peacock were all nice to see. The first hover of the year came in the form of a Marmalade Hoverfly. 

A female Sparrowhawk barrelled through, and the resident pair of Green Woodpeckers were in evidence as well as a Great Spot. 

A good day to be outside..... 

The Fly Trap

Whenever I do my Christmas shopping I always seem to end up with more for me than the other members of my family.....not really sure what that says about me!

On one such pre-christmas session on a well-known website I ended up purchasing The Fly Trap by Fredrik Sjöberg. Originally published about a decade ago it has only recently been translated into English.

Sjöberg is a collector of hoverflies on an island in the Swedish archipelago off Stockholm, and this hobby is the starting point of a beautifully written musing about life and the nature of obsession, all woven around a biography of the Swedish entomologist, René Malaise (him of the trap).

This was a good read and I could really relate to the sense of feeling at one with a particular place, where the seasonal nuances of nature and one's understanding of them give the observer a deep sense of calm and satisfaction.

Malaise was someone I knew nothing about, and this brief biography gives a real sense of the man himself and his rather amazing life. From his heyday in the 1930s to his later obsession with Atlantis.

Anyway, one to recommend.