Last summer saw three species of bumblebees returning to breed in the RX area, the red-shanked carder bee Bombus ruderarius, the large garden bumblebee B. ruderatus and the shrill carder bee B. sylvarum. The big question over the winter was would any of these species have a successful nesting season and return to breed in 2011?
Well, so far we have Read the rest of this entry »
Several Emperor dragonflies covered in dew and at stage four of emergence was a nice find early this morning, 20 exuviae in total were found. This species starts to emerge soon after sunset and continues during the night untill dawn, so its always nice to find a few still clinging to their exuvia. The individual pictured below took its maiden flight shortly after the picture was taken after a bout of wing-whirring to warm up the flight muscels. Also of interest was my first Scaeva pyrastri of the year. This conspicuous hoverfly is a migrant and numbers fluctuate from year to year, last summer it was abundent around the reserve and local area.
Female Emperor preparing for its maiden flight at Castle Water this morning.
