Bug Safari

My new toy is a macro lens so expect to see plenty of wee invertebrates coming this way, some in focus when I get depth of field mastered. Here's some critters captured in Northumberland last weekend. Please let me know if you can ID the ones with a question mark by them.

Tetragnatha sp

Meta mengei

Wolf spider ...... don't worry, it's not to scale!

Alder Fly

Chironomid midge

Sawfly - ? ....nearly 500 species in Britain!

Hoverfly - Syrphus ribesii

.....an aphid eater extraordinaire, consuming hundreds in its two week larval state

Hoverfly - Melanostoma scalare

Springtail

'Folded-wing' Crane-fly - Limonia nubeculosa 

A Psyllid (Homoptera)

A big critter - Brown Hare

Common Quaker & Neriene montana

Just one moth in the trap this morning, this beautiful Common Quaker:

Common Quaker

And I came across this handsome spider in the garden yesterday:

Sheet Web Spider (Neriene montana)

Home sweet home

An early morning visit to St Mary's was as far as I ventured out today. The reported Garganey was long gone but picked up a Little Grebe for a patch tick for the year. Back at the ranch I had a play with my new toy, a Canon 7D camera. Here's some of the mugshots taken in my garden.

Exactly a week ago I estimated another 25 days till the frog spawn

 would become tadpoles. Wrong! The warm weather has speeded things up.

A queen White-tailed Bumblebee (Bombus lucorum) searches for a nest site.

A Lace webbed spider (Amaurobius similis) 'lurking' in the shed.

White-shouldered House Moth (Endrosis sarcitrella) in our living room.