Insects

 Where have all the insects gone? 

There has been no real shortage of midges when the weather has been right for them ie warm, still and muggy. Fortunately for us humans those conditions have been few and far between so far this summer. However spare a thought for the poor midges. This is not the first recent Year of Few Midges.

What made me think about this was that I recently drove down to Glasgow and Penrith and home again and since then have been driving round the Island in hot, for us, weather (until yesterday!). 

During all that time I didn't have to clean my windscreen once of dead insects.

It doesn't seem long ago that I spent hours each summer cleaning dead insects off  windscreen, headlights, number plate and so on and I even had special spray-on fluid for the job. 

Has anyone else noticed the dearth of insects?

Some Garden Thoughts

It's been a bit of a battle in the garden the last few weeks. The weather has been distinctly unfriendly and today although the sun has now come out the wind is very strong so the plants are suffering a bit if they are in full bloom. Midsummer weather it ain't, even in the Outer Hebrides.

The yellow pansies have been putting up a good show for many weeks from my kitchen window even though some of the plants were actually blown out of the ground in one gale and the heavy rain has given them a real battering. They are hardier than I could have imagined.

I have said before that one of the thing that has helped me to enjoy isolation has been the garden. It's not only working in it that is a pleasure though. Just looking out of my kitchen window as I type this I often just sit and gaze at the view and admire the plants, the birds and the sea and mountains of the Mainland in the distance - hidden by haze in the pictures on this post taken today during a sunny few hours in between the rain.

One of the joys of a garden, though, is getting to know the individual plants.

My little wild strawberries would take over the garden given a chance, creeping around under all the taller plants and popping up wherever there is a chink of light. 

It's always a good idea to look at both the whole plant and then marvel at the the flower heads. This Persicaria campanulata or Lesser Knotweed is not much to look at in the garden because it's straggly. However if you look at the individual flowers they are pure works of art.

I am hopeless at remembering names off the top of my head even if I know the names somewhere in my memory banks. So I have started keeping photographs of those in my garden with names on them in the hope that they will eventually be recalled more easily. Two tiny flowers of great great beauty are:

When we look closely there are all sorts of creatures living off and on the flowers. In this case these were all on the Leucanthemum: 

The first is, I think, a Myrid bug of some sort, perhaps a Common Green Capsid.

And these two are a fly (and don't ask me what sort) and a bug (a Myrid Bug again perhaps):

 

Hopefully Adrian or CJ or someone else who knows about bugs and flies can identify them although I know from my brother (CJ) that flies can be extraordinarily hard to identify without a very powerful microscope to look at parts no self respecting reader of this blog would look at.

A Profusion of Wild Flowers and Insects

The East Dumbartonshire Council on the East side of Glasgow have been planting small open spaces like roundabouts, bits of verge at junctions and the like with wild flowers. It's lovely to look at and great for the environment. The insects love them. I stopped with CJ and Anna in Lennoxtown  at the foot of the Campsie Fells on our way back from an enjoyable lunch in the Courtyard Café in Fintry up in the Fells.

Here are some of the photos from that brief encounter:

A small view from above

A bumble bee getting close and polleny

A bee on a cornflower

Linum grandiflorum, Red flax

Painted Daisy, Ismelia carinata

Marmalade Hoverfly above Painted Daisy, Ismelia carinata

Hoverfly (Scaeva selenitica ?) on Cornflower

Greenbottle on Cornflower

"Spring is Sprung"

Ma Bunny said "and now we should get out of bed." For many years I had it in my head that this was a quotation from some other source.  It would appear, however, that it is a figment of my own imagination. That's unusual because imagination is definitely not my strong point.  

Of course there is another poem that my brother and I learned as wee children:

Spring has sprung, the grass is ris, 

I wonder where the boidies is
The boid is on the wing,
But that’s absoid
The wing is on the boid!

Oddly enough when I did a brief Google search I got many and varied results including the easily verifiable statement that it was by Winnie the Pooh although I certainly don't recall it and, as I'm not at home, I can't verify that. One of you, my readers, will know though.

 

I've been in Glasgow - Bishopbriggs to be precise -  for most of the week and today it's been 20ºC.  Perfect for Anna to get into the garden and for me to be helping with a bit of labouring. However as it's Easter Day it's been a family day for Anna and we've enjoyed company instead. Now it's evening and quiet but it's still warm and the sun is thinking of dipping below the horizon.

It does make me feel that it's time to celebrate what feels like the first day of Spring.

If the bee had been less active or I had been more adept I might have got a decent photo of my first bee of the year. 

The camillias in Anna's garden are flowering

in fact some are in full bloom

On the washing there was a Seven Spot Ladybird. I had no idea they could be out so early.

Getting ready for flight

Earwigs and Moths

No.  Not the catchy songs that get into your head.  Oh no.  They're earworms aren't they?  I mean those rather unpleasant Dermaptera that I really have never been able to bring myself to like.  These:

I'm not even sure why I don't like them.  They don't don't sting or bite people. Contrary to popular folklore they don't crawl down people's ears and lay eggs in the brain. (They much prefer dark dank habitats to nice warm bedrooms).  They don't as a rule do much harm to our gardens.  For all that so far as I am aware I don't know anyone who likes them. 

On the other hand I've had a good haul of moths in the last few days as well.  These are a few of them. If I've got the names wrong please do correct me.

Scorched Carpet Moth 

Absolutely No Idea Moth 

Antler Moth

Antler Moth 

Garden Tiger Moth

Birds and Bugs

There are no birds.  There are lots of bugs (in the widest non-scientific sense).  

Until this morning I had not seen a bird apart from some pigeons, swallows and a gathering of unidentified corvidae in San Giminiano.  This morning when I went into the garden I could hear the unmistakeable  chatter of sparrows.  I saw a small flock but they dispersed into the trees before I could photograph them.  Then patience won and I managed to locate a Blue Tit down in the grove below The Villa. Then I saw a couple of the inevitable starlings on the roof and a collared dove in the tree above me. It was before the sun had reached the fields so it was lucky there was enough light for the long lens. 

The bugs have, however, been more plentiful with the inevitable - now dead - horse fly when we were washing the car (it may amuse you to know Pat that the lump on my leg is every bit as spectacular as the lumps you had) and the occasional mosquito.

There are some interesting ones most of which I am not able to identify because although I brought the kitchen sink on holiday I forgot all my flora and fauna reference books.

Centipede (his carapace was over 2cm)

Grasshopper - big!

I thought it was a cockroach but I think they all have long antennae - about 2.5 cm and apparently missing 2 legs (which may be why he was crawling slowly up a wall)

Centipede - Possibly 6 cm long and very fast (Not as I first said a millipede 'cos it has only 1 leg each side of each segment)

One of hundreds of shield bugs which seem to love the bedrooms

Absolutely no idea but it was about 1.5cm long

Unbelievably fast and flitting I was very lucky to get this shot with the lens on long focus.  Help?

A fire bug

A splendid piece of armouring by the look of it.  No idea what it is though.

And another grasshopper capable of jumping at least three metres.

Help with identification would be appreciated.