9 Apr 26 - Signs Of Spring Part 10 - A Plethora Of Shieldbugs

I've been watching St Aldhelms regularly this Spring. One of the corners on the patch that I check has proved to be a great new site for Shieldbugs on sunny days. On this visit, I ended up seeing four species, with a big appearance of Sloe Bugs and a single Green Shieldbug: both new for the year at St Aldhelms. There were also some of the Boat Bugs and Brassica Bugs that I've already seen on a few occasions at this site this Spring.

Green Shieldbug: This was new for the year at St Aldhelms

Sloe Bug: I found fourteen in a quick search. Clearly, there has been a recent large appearance of this species

Brassica Bug: I found three in a quick search

Dock Bug: I found three in a quick search. Thanks to Rockwolf74 on Bluesky for correcting my identification from Boat Bug

28 May 18 - Bank Holiday Clubbing

Around the Bank Holiday weekend, my thoughts turned to looking at the weather for suitable sunny conditions to have another attempt to see Club-tailed Dragonflies. I had looked in June 2014 at the Goring-on-Thames site, but had been unsuccessful. I've tried to find another date in subsequent years to head back, but I've not been able to find good looking conditions on a free weekend. So I was interested when I saw one of the Dorset Birders had successfully seen Club-tailed Dragonflies at a site in Sussex on the Bank Holiday Sunday. A quick chat on social media & I had some directions. The weather looked good on the Bank Holiday Monday, so I left early hoping the traffic would be light: fortunately, it was. I arrived just before 11 & the weather forecast was spot on: sunny & still conditions. First problem was having to get past a number of young, inquisitive cattle on the riverbank. About ten minutes later, I saw my first Club-tailed Dragonfly, but it quickly disappeared out of view. Five minutes later, the next was happy to sit around for photos.

Club-tailed Dragonfly: Male. Club-tailed Dragonflies are initially tricky to see once the adults hatch as the teneral phase quickly head off to nearby treetops to mature

Club-tailed Dragonfly: Male. After a couple of weeks in the treetops, the mature adults return to the riverbank to mate

Club-tailed Dragonfly: Male. They range from Sussex to the Thames in Oxfordshire & across to the Severn on clean, slow-moving rivers

Club-tailed Dragonfly: Male

Club-tailed Dragonfly: Male. This one landed on the grass by the riverbank for a few minutes, before returning to patrolling the river

Club-tailed Dragonfly: Male. A couple of the males were patrolling the river over a 50 metre stretch

Club-tailed Dragonfly: Male

Club-tailed Dragonfly: Male. I didn't see any females so perhaps they were still to return to the river

Club-tailed Dragonfly: Male. The males were sitting around close to the river to look for the females as they returned from the treetops

There were also large numbers of Banded Demoiselles & smaller numbers of Large Red Damselflies along the river bank.

Banded Demoiselle: Male. They were very common along the riverbank, but I only took a few photos of them as I've taken a lot of photos in previous years

Banded Demoiselle: Male. They are even more stunning when seen close up

Banded Demoiselle: Female

Banded Demoiselle: Female

Banded Demoiselle: Males. I really like this photo

Large Red Damselfly

I also saw a Shieldbug which I wasn't sure which one it was at the time, but it looked familiar. But the beauty of having a decent camera meant I could photograph it & work it out later, when I had the book handy.

Dock Bug: This widespread Shieldbug occurs as an adult from August to July & prefers dense vegetation along hedgerows, wasteland & damper areas. I was right, I had seen it before

Dock Bug: I saw several without any real searching

I also saw this presumed pair of Beetles, which I've not managed to identifying yet.

Beetle sp.: Any thoughts about the identification?

19 Aug 14 - Shieldbugs - An Interesting Overlooked Group

I can remember seeing my first Hawthorn Shieldbug whilst at university. For many years, this was an interesting looking group of insects, but one which I was struggling to identify given the lack of a field guide I did find an ancient book in the university library to work out the Hawthorn Shieldbug. Then a few years ago, I found a great website and more importantly the guys behind the website had produced a field guide. It is the Photographic Guide to the Shieldbugs and Squashbugs of the British Isles by Martin Evans & Roger Edmondson. A superb & not expensive book which is well worth buying. The only problem was I had still only seen one species. Still armed with a camera, I have managed to get a few photos of Shieldbugs over the last few years & have managed to identify a few more species.

Birch Shieldbug: A medium sized Shieldbug with dark red-brown and black over most of the wing cases. Adult. Swanage (18 May 12)

Green Shieldbug: Adult. The all green colouration & slightly enlarged pronotum (body behind the head), dark wing tips and reddish tips to the last two stages of the antennae identifies this species. Swanage (8 Aug 14)

Green Shieldbug: Final instar: the final immature larval stage before the winged adult appears. Swanage (8 Aug 14)

Forest Bug: Final Instar. Spean Bridge (16 June 11)

Dock Bug: Adult. A large, mottled brown Bug with a broad abdomen. Godlingston Heath (1 June 14)

Boat Bug Enoplops scapha: Wingless larva. St Aldhelms (6 July 14)

Tortoise Beetle Cassida vibex: Looks like a Shieldbug Instar, but is one of about 18 species of Cassida Beetles. Thanks to Sean Foote for identifying it. Swanage (8 Aug 14)

I'm sure that going out with somebody who knew more about this interesting group of insects, would quickly increase the number of species I've seen. But it's been fun just finding them by chance and plenty more to look out for. This is an insect group that it is fairly easy for a beginner to get into as many appear to be fairly widespread and there are only 43 species in the group.

1 June 14 - Signs Of Some Of Purbeck Oldest Residents

I have recently been told about some Tumuli at Godlingston Heath next to my Studland patch. So thought I would have a look at the site. It's near a viewpoint over the Studland area. I've looked from the viewpoint on many occasions, but I didn't know the Tumuli were there. There are 3 Tumuli or Round Barrows here. Steve Morrison has commented that they are Bronze Age (approximately 2500 BC to 800 BC). They would have been burial mounds for important people within the community who lived here. Dorset & neighbouring Wiltshire have a lot of Neolithic & Bronze Age monuments, mostly in the chalk parts of the county and there are quite a few other Barrow locations in the Purbeck area. I've not been able to find out anything else about these Tumuli, but if anybody reading this does know anything more about these Tumuli, please leave a comment to this post. On the Scillies, archeological studies have shown that the people were living & farming on the lower parts of the islands & placing their Barrows on higher ground where they would be more visible at a distance. Presumably, a similar thing is happening here, especially as there are additional barrows higher up on the chalk ridge which separates the Poole Harbour basin from the Swanage area on Nine Barrow Down.There are plenty of other examples of Barrows on high ground elsewhere in the Dorset & Wiltshire area, but this little corner of the Poole Harbour reminds me of the Scillies with the close proximity of Heath & Downs, next to the coastline (just from a habitat viewpoint, rather than a rarity viewpoint).

The Godlingston Tumuli: There are 3 Tumuli or Round Barrows here

There are good views over Newtons Bay & Brands Bay from this area.

View from the Tumuli: Newtons Bay is on the left, with Brands Bay on the right & the harbour mouth at the extreme right hand end of the photo

There were a few Butterflies & Dragonflies on the wing in the surrounding area.

Painted Lady: There has been a small arrival of Painted Ladies in the last couple of weeks from Europe, but some years have hundreds of thousands of this great Butterfly arriving on Southerly winds, before breeding & heading North. A smaller movement South is sometimes obvious in the Autumn

Small Tortoiseshell: Sadly, this once common Butterfly has declined quite a bit since my youth

Brown Silver-line: A fairly common day flying Moth where Bracken occurs on Heaths

Keeled Skimmer: Female. They are just starting to appear locally

Keeled Skimmer: Female. I couldn't resist another photo of this stunning Dragonfly

Dock Bug: It is fairly common across the Southern half of England and coastal Wales in dense hedgerows, wastelands & damper areas

I had spent the morning at Old Harry looking to see if the Grey-headed Wagtail was still around at Old Harry, while several hundred people had been watching the Short-toed Eagle at Morden Bog. Before I left Old Harry, it had been seen flying off high South & West from Morden. I thought it might have been tempted to hang around on the Lulworth tank ranges & return to Morden Bog that afternoon. Therefore, I headed to a viewpoint overlooking the Wareham to East Holme water meadows. From here I had a reasonable, but distant, view of the Lulworth ranges. I could have found closer viewpoints of the Lulworth ranges, but that wouldn't have put me between the ranges & Morden Bog. More crucially, it wouldn't have put me within the Poole Harbour area. At this point, we didn't know if it had occurred in Poole Harbour, but myself & a number of the local Harbour listers were doing our best to add it to the Harbour list. We subsequent know that it was seen over Arne soon after if disappeared on the Saturday morning, but only seen by a visiting birdwatcher. My 2.5 hour vigil wasn't wasted, despite no sign of the Short-toed Eagle, as my Plan B worked. About a month ago, local Harbour birder, Nick Hopper, was doing survey work on a farm close to where I was standing. He flushed a Grey Partridge, a species that hadn't been seen in Poole Harbour since the late 90s. One was heard the following evening, by Nick & a couple of other local Harbour birders, but I had no success when Nick took me onto this private farm. However, as part of the farm is bordered by the Wareham to Wool road, I've been looking every time I pass the area. This was about my 8th attempt & I was keeping my eye on a couple of small ploughed fields, between Eagle watching. This Plan B tactic paid off when a Grey Partridge walked across one of the fields, before walking back into cover: my fifth Harbour tick of the year. This compares to 3 in each of the last 2 years, so it has been a great Spring locally. Sadly, too far for a photo on this occasion.

Worbarrow Hill Fort: I've not noticed this before, but it will be somewhere to explore this Summer. Another sign of some of Dorset's oldest residents 

As the temperature was starting to drop, I figured that as it was now about 2 hours after the Short-toed Eagle had gone to roost on the previous afternoon, then I was probably not going to get it flying overhead to Morden Bog. There had been no confirmed sightings since it flew off about 10:00, just the usual probable (i.e. rubbish) claims that seem to occur whenever an interesting large Raptor occurs. So a final scan over Soldiers Road & Hartland Heath in case it was roosting over there, before home for some well earnt food.

Finally, I've had some great feedback from Brett Spencer & Martin Garner on the Grey-headed Wagtail, so please check back & view the comments for that post.