Had a very busy insect-free weekend but just before this latest spat of crap weather I did manage a quick loop about Ally Pally after work as a rare sunny evening went by.
Not an awful lot to report except a couple of botanical lifers in the form of Sheep’s Sorrel and a very pretty grass, Crested Dog’s-tail. And a bug I had thought I’d recorded before – Stenotus binotatus. All achingly common but just another example of how much there is to learn.
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| Crested Dog's-tail (Cynosurus cristatus) |
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| Yeah, it's an awful, blurry photo but it shows the structure quite well. |
In one oak I found the predatory mirid bug, Phylus melanocephalus; and a hopper that turned out to be a Ribautiana sp. and therefore pretty much unidentifiable for the likes of me. An alder tree had the dark capsid bug, Capsus ater and quite a lot of a type of bristletail which coils its antennae into a loop. I believe this makes it Pogonognathellus longicornis, the one species of bristletail I’ve previously recorded. In the long grasses in the south-eastern corner of the park came many of the usual characters - lots of the Thick-thighed Flower Beetle, Oedemera nobilis; the mirid bug Leptopterna dolobrata; and Roesel’s Bush-cricket nymphs. Also possibly the most richly marked Tortoise Shieldbug I’ve ever seen:
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| Tortoise Shieldbug (Eurygaster testudinaria) |
