Harlequin Ladybirds

It's that time of year again,  The warm south-west side of the house is full of harlequin ladybirds trying to find nooks and crannies in which to hibernate.  There's lots of Daily Mail fuelled controversy about whether or not they are harmful to our native ladybirds, or should I say harmful to our less recently introduced ladybirds.  (There were no ladybirds here during the ice age as far as we know.)

The latest nonsense (The Daily Mirror for a change, which I won't dignify with a link) is that they are infected by a sexually transmitted fungal disease.  It isn't nonsense that they have the disease, but the implication that they will somehow harm our native wildlife is nonsense.  It is nonsense because different species cannot mate with each other. That is the definition of a species, and is especially true of insects which have hard chitin parts that must fit exactly for insemination to be achieved.  There may be a danger of transmission by contact, but that's a contagious disease not an STD.

If you want to get excited about dangers to our native ladybirds then maybe we should worry about them feeding on aphids, that in turn feed on plants treated with neonicotinoids, or worse, plants that haven't been treated with neonics but are growing in soil contaminated by neonics which accumulates in the soil and stays there for many years.

As the following photos show, there is considerable variation in the colours and patterns of harlequin ladybirds (probably nominative determinism - why else would they be called harlequins?).  The UK Ladybirds Survey website ( http://www.ladybird-survey.org/ladybirds.aspx - a great site for identification and ladybird information generally) says that harlequins are yellow-orange, orange-red, red or black with between 0 and 21 orange-red or black spots.  No problem with identification there then! But the best way of being sure that it is a harlequin is to look for brown legs.  Most of our other species have black legs.
No captions, every one a harlequin - Harmonia axyridis

Andromeda Lacebug

It's amazing the stuff you find out when you're not really looking.  I found this exquisite insect when I was wandering round the garden with my camera, just in case I found something interesting.  I posted the photo on Facebook for an identification (my insect book isn't that good on unusual stuff) and the response was a link to a website that showed it to be an andromeda lacebug.  On reading further it turns out that it was introduced to the UK around 1998 by the plant trade.  The plant that gives the bug its name is Pieris japponica which is the favoured host of the insect and I found the bug within inches of our Pieris.  The plant is native to Eastern Asia, Japan in particular where it grows in thickets on the mountains.  (Another good reason to visit Japan, as if I needed one.)  The common name for the Pieris is Japanese Andromeda.  All I need to know now is what it has got to do with a distant galaxy.  What an amazing bug though and only about 5-6mm long.

I hate leaving questions unanswered.  A quick trip round Wikipedia tells me that the Andromeda galaxy is named after the princess Andromeda, daughter of Cepheus and Cassiopeia in Greek mythology.  Her name means 'ruler of men' in ancient greek.  She was chained to a rock as bait for a sea monster and rescued by Perseus.  Sounds a bit of a character! 

The Pieris plant Japanese Andromeda, is named for its resemblance to Andromeda polifolia, otherwise known as bog rosemary.  Andromeda polifolia was named by Carl Linnaeus after the 'ruler of men' from Greek mythology.

Andromeda Lacebug - Stephanitis takeyai

Inula

Inula is a large plant that dominates any border it finds itself in.  But it is very attractive to pollinating insects, as the following photos show.

Very worn and faded but probably Common Carder - Bombus pascuorum

Common short-tongued species Buff-tailed bumblebee - Bombus terrestris

Possibly the lesser mason bee, a solitary bee - Osmia leaiana

Yellow-legged flower bee (solitary) possibly Andrena flavipes

Patchwork leaf-cutter bee (solitary) - Megachile centuncularis

Common long-tongued species Garden bumblebee - Bombus Hortorum

Common long-tongued species Garden bumblebee - Bombus Hortorum

Marmalade hover-fly - Episyrphus balteatus

Unusual Plants

Recently looking for bumblebees at Dungeness I came across a plant I'd never noticed before.  It looked like moss at first glance, but something about it made me look twice.  It was a very tiny plant with leaves only a couple of millimetres long with what looked like red flower buds.  I posted the photos on a Facebook group for wild flowers, and it was identified as Sea-heath - Frankenia laevis.

When I looked at sea-heath in my book it had mauve flowers which didn't seem to match with the red buds I thought I'd seen so I went back and found some in flower which were indeed mauve.  The red buds turned out to be natural colouration of some of the leaves.

Sea-heath - Frankenia laevis with rabbit dropping for scale

Sea-heath - Frankenia laevis

Sea-heath - Frankenia laevis

This plant that I found in a field near Boulderwall farm, Dungeness looked very much like tufted vetch except that if you look in the wildflower book tufted vetch is blue-violet.  Apparently white forms sometimes occur in most plants.  I could accept that but this specimen looks much blousier than normal tufted vetch.  However, there are no other vetches that match either, even the white flowered vetches have blue or red veins in the flower unlike this one.

Tufted vetch - Vicia cracca

Tufted vetch - Vicia cracca

Currant Clearwing

While collecting pollen at a comfrey patch near New Romney, I was delighted to find and partially recognize this, my first clearwing moth.  I say partially recognize, because I was fairly sure it was a clearwing moth, but I wasn't sure of the species.  All the clearwing moths are regarded as Nationally Scarce and this is no exception.  They are probably under recorded because they are not attracted to the normal lures that moth collectors use such as light traps or sugar and wine-soaked ropes.  They fly by day and are closely related to the more familiar burnet moths.

This one is female having 3 abdominal stripes, the male has 4.

Just waiting for confirmation having posted the image on iRecord.

Currant Clearwing moth - Synanthedon tipuliformis

Brede High Woods Walk 18 June 2016

Half a dozen or so of us set out on a dull and occasionally rainy day to see what the woods had to offer.  We saw relatively few of the expected species, probably due to the weather, so no green tiger beetles or speckled yellow moths.  Most of the species we saw had roots so couldn't get away from the weather but we saw a few micro-moths, one macro-moth, a common toad, and some palmate newts.  Despite visiting the bridge over the stream, there were none of the damselflies or dragonflies we would normally have seen. Some of the better photos are below, but they are not very good thanks to the lack of light. (That's my excuse anyway!)

Common Marble micromoth - Celypha lacunana

Tormentil - Potentilla erecta One of two species of yellow flower that we saw,
 the other was yellow pimpernel

One of several sedges, probably common yellow-sedge, but I'm no expert.

Palmate newt - Lissotriton helveticus clearly showing why he's called that.

Probably a fragment of a blackbird's egg

Male Scorpion fly showing his scorpion-like tail, probably Panorpa communis

Small-barred long-horn micromoth - Adela croesella clearly showing his long horns

Common Carpet moth - Epirrhoe alternata that I chased into the grass.
Note that the term 'carpet' doesn't mean that it's a threat to your floor coverings,

but I'm not sure why they are called that.

Solitary Bees

April is a good time to find solitary bees emerging from their bee hotels.  Maybe the mild winter or the fact that Lidl and Aldi have been selling bee hotels has meant that there have been a lot this year.  Here are a few examples that have been feeding around Glebe Cottages.

Tawny Mining Bee (Male) having a rest. Andrena fulva

Yellow-legged Mining Bee in cute face-wiping pose - Andrena flavipes

Hairy-footed Flower Bee helping herself to nectar from our rosemary bush - Anthophora plumipes

Goose Barnacles

I am indebted to Trevor Buttle for this picture of Goose Barnacles washed up on the beach at Pett Level.  My apologies to Trevor for the time it has taken to actually post it.

Goose Barnacles

The goose barnacles are attached to a discarded fishing float.  In the days before migration was properly understood, it was thought that the barnacle goose grew from goose barnacles. Because the birds migrated, they were never seen to breed, so people turned to the most likely explanation - that the geese grew from something resembling a goose, at least from the shoulder up.  I don't know what species they are (there are several) but one of the most common  and widespread species is Lepas anserifera, a name which reflects the goose idea - anser = goose.

They are crustaceans that attach themselves to hard surfaces and are filter feeders that feed on a variety of zoo-plankton and detritus.