We decided to visit the stream in the field behind our house this morning. After a quick splash in the water and a squelch through the mud, it turned into a bit of a bug hunt.
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| You never know what might be lurking in the mud! |
The Yellow Irises were full of Amber snails and Long Jawed Orb Weaver spiders.
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| A tiny Amber snail - with a distinctively shaped shell |
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The Amber snails were on almost every leaf. The larger snails were in groups
throughout the Irises. You can see the damage they've done to the Iris leaves. |
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| Long-Jawed Orb Weaver spider |
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| We saw lots of these spiders - most had a parcel of food |
There were hundreds of Dock Leaf beetles all over the weeds at the waters edge.
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| Dock Leaf Beetles |
The grass and nettles were full of all sorts of lovely beetles and bugs.
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| Tortoise Shield Bug |
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| Tortoise Shield Bug |
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| Red-headed Cardinal Beetle |
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| Dock Bug |
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| Grasshopper - fist one we've seen this year |
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| Nettle Weevil |
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| Soldier Beetle |
We even managed to find a few Small Tortoiseshell caterpillars, that ended up having to come home with us to live on our nettle patch in the garden.
We saw several butterflies, including an Orange Tip, Peacock, Small Tortoiseshell and Large White. We also found a Common Swift moth hiding in the grass.
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| A lovely furry headed moth |
Not bad for a quick walk with the dog and it's hopefully burnt off some energy (from the kids and he dog!)
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| Heading home |
Updated 27/5: The shiny green beetles are Dock Leaf Beetle, not Mint Leaf Beetles (thanks to Martin Harvey for letting me know about my dodgey id!)
Is that larger snail the same species as the smaller ones? Wow that is a whopper!
ReplyDeleteI think the larger ones were a different species - there were quite a lot of them. Not sure of an Id, but maybe a Copse snail.
ReplyDeleteBMG has to check out my blog today! The swallowtails are out!!
ReplyDelete