Sunday 4 June 2017

4th June

A Reed Warbler is still settled in the reeds in the Magic Garden and singing vigorously. I finally managed to get a shot of it today. I was reasonably pleased with this given it was singing from deep in the reed bed and I could hardly pick it out even with binoculars…


Close by I saw around 15 of these cracking little Longhorn moths (Nemophora degeerella) in a strange slow- motion ‘dance’. Look at those antennae!

This is a new species for the parish and one that is not very common in this part of Yorkshire.

In my steep learning curve of insects I have also started looking at bumble bees so this is I think a Common Carder Bee…


And this a Garden Bumble Bee…


But then just to confuse things this apparent bumble bee is actually a bee-imitating hoverfly Volucella bombylans…


It has two forms, one like this that imitates White-tailed Bumblebee and another that imitates the orange tailed bees. Nature never fails to amaze!

4 comments:

  1. Bees are starting to confuse me! I was impressed with a Longhorn Beetle I saw recently but that Moth exceeds that!

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