RXwildlife Sightings

There seems to have been quite a bit of migrant activity over the last few days, with several species of immigrant turning up in my moth trap. The majority of these seem to be the (largish) micro Rush Veneer, with quite a few White-point (which probably also breeds on this part of the south coast), Dark Sword-grass and Silver Y. Highlight however was the attractive micro Marbled Yellow Pearl (Evergestis extimalis) another scarce resident more usually found as a migrant in southern Britain.

Marbled Yellow Pearl

A peacefull and enjoyable visit to Bixley Wood yesterday provided a great selection of hoverflies, I found 24 species along the pathways and woodland clearings, several were new to me but one that stood out was Eriozona syrphoides. Information available on this large bumblebee mimic is several years old and a rather tedious trawl through the web found nothing new. It was first reported from Snowdonia in 1968 and recent records are spread acrosss northern and western Britain, I can’t find any reference to records in East Sussex? I can’t believe that such a big and distinctive hoverfly has gone unnoticed. Anyway, additional highlights were provided by Sericomyia silentis, Ferdinandea cuprea and Baccha elongata. Sadly it was a bad day for taking pictures, the best of the bunch are below.

Large bumblebee mimic Eriozona syrphoides

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Desite the cold weather overnight, the good run on migrant moths continued this morning with The Vestal (Rhodometra sacraria). This species breeds in southern Europe and North Africa, and turns up irregularly in Britain as a migrant, sometimes in large numbers (the last one at Lime Kiln was in 2006).

Vestal (Rhodometra sacraria)

Two weeks ago I found a shrill carder bee Bombus sylvarum on the Dungeness RSPB reserve, and as it was the first British specimen of this bee I have seen I took a voucher specimen.  This might seem an odd practice for someone always banging on about bee conservation, and I admit to feeling guilty afterwards.  I’m glad I did though, for two reasons.

The following week several similar, though rather worn looking bees were observed in the same area.  Closer examination with Geoff Allen and Nikki Gamans revealed that they were a different species, a type of flower bee Anthophora furcata (thanks to Dave Walker for the following photo).

These insects were confusing Read the rest of this entry »

Highlight this morning was the migrant micro Cydia amplana (though our recording software comes up with the wonderful English name of Vagrant Piercer). This is another one of those species that has turned up in Britain fairly recently, with the first record in Devon in 1990. Most records have been from south-west England, and as far as I can see this is the first for Rye Harbour, though it did turn up in Icklesham about the same time of year in 2006. The larvae feed inside various nuts such as walnut, hazelnut and acorns and can be something of a pest under certain circumstances.

Vagrant Piercer (Cydia amplana)

Holmans Meadow is a favourite place of mine to mooch about looking for wildlife, yesterday a fine selection of insects were found many of which have already featured this season on this site. I found a couple of species of hoverfly that were new to me, the scarce Rhingia rostrsata and the partial migrant Scaeva selenitica. R. rostrata is very similiar to Rhingia campestris which was very common on the reserve in May. Several features need to be checked to seperate the two species, a thin black line on the side of the abdomen and along the lateral margins of the tergites are a couple of features that are shown well when comparing the two species in the pictures below.

Rhingia rostrata, lacking the thin black lines

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My black male large garden bumblebee Bombus ruderatus from Dungeness has been sent to Paul Williams at the Natural History Museum who has confirmed that it matches the description of the species.  It’s travels are not over though as it is going to be sent to China with other specimens as part of a project to analyse the DNA of this whole group of rather confusing bees.

Here is a photo of the face of this insect.  Note the long face (a feature shared in common with the related small garden bumblebee Bombus hortorum) and the ginger hairs on the lower mandible - said to be a characteristic of the males of this species.  They are black in hortorum, which also does not appear to come in all-black forms.

So, (almost) the end of the 10th season of bumblebee monitoring at the RSPB reserve and it is time to evaluate the results I gathered with Pete Akers.  A strange year.  On one hand the total of 240 bumblebees counted on the timed walks was the third lowest since monitoring began (last years count was 361).  However this was due to a steep decline in the numbers of our three commonest species, whereas the rarer species had a good year, and two new species were found on the reserve.

The brown banded carder bee Bombus humilis had it’s Read the rest of this entry »

Sam posted a rather attractive fly recently, now perhaps I can post a rather less attractive looking fly. I believe it’s a ‘Hippoboscidae’ species possibly ‘Ornithomya avicularia’. It is a parasite fly found on birds but in this case found on my wife after a spot of gardening in Peasmarsh…

On the 27th of July I posted pictures of the large garden bumblebee Bombus ruderatus, a Biodiversity Action Plan species that has not been recorded in the RX area recently, and mentioned that it was reported to be spreading in the UK at the moment.  The following day Nicki Gammans took several specimens at a site at Shirley Moor.  Then today I took another specimen, a totally black male on the Dungeness RSPB reserve.

By this stage I was walking around with a Cheshire Cat grin, but there was more good news, because one hour later I found two shrill carder bees Bombus sylvarum, also on the RSPB reserve.  The shrill carder bee is Read the rest of this entry »