While out Birding in the UK, I've often got half an eye on the ground as I'm walking. Perhaps not the best place for a Birder to be looking, but given I like Butterflies, Dragonflies etc, then it's worth also keeping an eye lower down. I was walking along the approach track to Trev's Quarry at St Aldhelms, when an unusual Insect caught my eye. It was too far away to initially work it out, but my immediate thought was it might have been a Verge Cricket: a new species that has arrived in the Southern counties in Summer 26. A closer look revealed it wasn't a Verge Cricket, but my second Western Conifer Seed Bug.
Western Conifer Seed Bugs are native to North America. They were first recorded in the UK in 2007. They have quickly spread across Southern and Central England, with some records from Wales, Northern England and Southern Scotland. They feed on sap and seed cones of Pines and some other Conifers, but fortunately, they are not thought to be a major pest species in the UK. I checked the NBN Atlas, which is a fantastic resource for checking the distribution of UK species and it doesn't list any records for St Aldhelms. This wasn't surprising as there is only one area of Conifers on the patch: the private Bonvils house and grounds which are six hundred metres away. It's unlikely that this site has ever been explored for Insects, beyond a few obvious groups like Butterflies.