Midges and an Adventure

This morning there were a few dead midges around after the door had been open most of yesterday evening so I tried to get some photos with the microscope.  Given that a midge is less than 2mm long it's a challenge just finding it.  David has to go to Uist today.  I shall go for the journey.  It'll be a full day there and back.  So these are some quick midge shots just to let you know how the experiment went: not very well.  I shall get some good shots eventually with a bit more time and application.

Midge taken with camera on macro to give size (mm scale)

Microscope at 20x

Microscope part at 400 times

Common Froghopper

So much for my intention to post every day this week.  Tomorrow my niece and her husband from Exeter arrive for a long weekend.  They haven't been up to Lewis before so I'm really looking forward to their company and to showing them around.  I'm hoping that we may see some eagles and perhaps a peregrine if we are really lucky.  There will be plenty of insects life for Helen to admire though.  At the moment there is an abundance of tiny Common Froghoppers.  They are only 5 or 6 mm long.  The cuckoo spit that is often seen on plants contains the larval stage of this little insect.

Do You Like Critters?

Katherine at The Last Visible Dog needs your help!

Katherine would like to know

1. What are your least favourite 5 insects and why?

2. What are your favourite 5 insects and why?

You can learn more and answer at Do You Like Critters?

Magpie Moth

I was just on the phone when I saw this Magpie Moth land on the kitchen window.  I managed to manoevre phone and camera and get two shots before it flew away.  So far as I can recall it's the first Magpie Moth I've photographed.  It may well be the first I've ever seen here.

Water Boatmen

I was cleaning the pond yesterday when something jumped on the path at the water's edge.  After a while it stopped jumping around and I discovered that I had a really attractive little creature - to photograph.  It was about 15mm (just over 1/2") long.  It's (leastways I hope it is) a Common Backswimmer or Water Boatman. 

 Common Backswimmer: Notonecta glauca 

This small (no more than 16 mm long) creature is an extremely potent hunters. They have three pairs of legs, two of which are used to “walk” underwater, while the third one serves as a kind of oars.   Although a water creature, the Backswimmer also has a pair of wings, which are covered under a layer of protective plates when the creature is not flying.

The Backswimmer uses the gel-like top layer of water by swimming under it, with the legs upside down, touching the water membrane. There the animal hunts everything that is small enough to catch.  They are one of the most aggressive water creatures hunting everything that comes near and is small enough – other bugs, larvae, small fish and tadpoles, as well as flying bugs that have fallen in the water.   These animals are so dangerous that they can even wipe out populations of fish completely, by hunting out all the young fish.

When the prey is close enough, the Backswimmer charges it at lightning speed and pierces the victim’s body with the small snout and injects a paralyzing substance, as well as digestion fluid which quickly dissolves tissue and turns it into a liquid substance, very much as spiders’ poison. does.  Afterwards, the Backswimmer sucks out all the feeding substance from the victim’s body and only an empty shell is left.

They are also competent fliers and often fly from one pond to another, in search of better suited surroundings – waters rich with oxygen and plants.

When I was in France recently I photographed another type of Water Boatman - not that I knew what it was until I asked my niece, Helen - which had flown into the swimming pool.  Plenty of bugs for it to eat but I'm not sure how long it would have survived the chlorine.

 [Thanks to www.itsnature.org for the information on which much of the text is based.]

For Helen

After my post yesterday on the annual return of the Large Red Damselfly to the pond I decided just before midday today, when the sun decided to replace the dismal clouds for a while, to go and clear some of the algae from the pond.  there is something rewarding – like painting the Forth Road Bridge – in knowing that however much you do today there will still be just as much waiting to be done tomorrow.  Anyway as I knelt down and dipped my hand into the water a flurry of Damselflies rose and flew off.   I was irritated by the fact that I hadn’t been aware enough to have seen them first.  However they soon came back, by which time I had my camera in my hand.  I counted three coupling pairs and several others who seemed variously to be chasing the pairs or just being voyeurs.  I was really excited.  Helen’s enthusiasm for  Odonata has rubbed off on me.  And all that’s thanks to CJ for making me so aware of the world of insects in general.

So here are what will probably be the last photos I will ever post on this Blog of Large Red Damselflies – unless, of course, I ever manage to catch some hatching.  I wonder if they do hatch in my pond.

Is that a grin on their faces?

Devil's Coach-horse

0530 is not the most auspicious time of day to come face to face, or, I should say foot to face, with a 1" long beetle on the bathroom floor. I wondered how, as it scurried round looking for somewhere to hide, it had managed to get into the house. After all we tend to live in fairly hermetically sealed homes these days with, in the weather we had on Sunday, the smallest amount of ventilation. He (or she) did not seem to be able to fly (thank heaven) so presumably had entered the bathroom through the ventilation fan. Fortunately I was awake, having decided that there was no more sleep to be had and that there were things to do. Disposing of beetles had not, however, been on the agenda. And, of course, nowadays I can't just dispose of these creatures. They have to be photographed and identified - and then thrown out. Which is what happened. And so I saw my first (identified) Devil's Coach-horse. In that it eats slugs at night it is a Good Beetle (because it eats slugs not because it does so at night). Leastways I'm fairly certain that's what it was (and, presumably, still is) although I couldn't identify the fine hairs with which his ilk is supposed to be arrayed.