Monthly Archives: July 2023

A few hours out, and there was a break in the weather, it had stopped raining, at last, so it was out to Bullcliffe NR, for a few hours.

Plenty of Common Red Soldier Beetles found on site, Gatekeeper Butterflies we in abundance, a single Red Admiral Butterfly was found, and a few Green veined White Butterflies.

I found a patch of Ox eye Daisies, I decided on settling here for a while, watching what was coming and going. I saw Hairy Shieldbug, Spotted Longhorn Beetle, plenty of Hoverflies Syrphus sp, Myathropa florea, Sphaerophoria sp, Episyrphus balteatus, Gatekeepers and Green veined Whites.

Looking around Bullcliffe, mainly on the bramble paches, I found a new fly I hadn’t seen before, a large and colourful fly, a Tachnid fly, going by the name of Phasia hemiptera, this is a parasite fly of shieldbugs, Green and Forest .

Looking other areas at Bullcliffe, more Butterflies to see, mainly, Green veined White and Gatekeeper but I did find a single Comma. At this bramble patch I came across one of my favourite hoverflies the Chrysotoxum bicinctum, a little beauty, black and yellow. On this same bramble patch, I caught sight of what I thought was another Chrysotoxum bicinctum, but eventually turned out to be a fly, another new one, a Thick headed fly, 9 to 11mm in length, aand goes by the name of Conops flavipes, another parasite fly, this ones larvae are parasites to bumblebess.

That was about it at Bullcliffe, heres a short video of the visit PRESS

A break in the dull weather to a fairly sunny one, resulted in me having a quick look around the local ponds after work, I was getting Dragonfly withdrawal.

On entry to the first pond resulted in nothing seen, the second one, at first glance was going the same way.

I moved around to the opposite side, and here I finally saw a Brown Hawker, flying low over the pond vegetation. There was nothing else I could see, so I thought.

I sat and waited, a Blue tailed Damselfly flew passed, male, drifted out of sight, then a female Emerald Damselfly settled on nearby vegetation. I took a few shots. It was a little too far the the 40-150mm lens, which I had on at the time. It was an Emerald Damselfly. However, looking at the photos, there was no sign of Blue, and it had pale wing spots (Pterostigma), I started looking for the spur on the thorax, and there it was, where it should be, I’d found my first local Willow Emerald Damselfly, female, it don’t get much better than that. To finish the visit off, I finally found a couple of female Emerald Damselflies on the nearby bramble patch.