Some interesting beasties

Happy Summer Everyone! What a great week or so of weather we have had eh?!

From my reckoning, all this sun at last seems to be good for just about everything. The bugs were up and a-buzzing, including lots of bees around London. Good for all the birds too as I suspect their food is much easier to come by!

  So, with the forecast suggesting that our time in full sun is over for the time being, I have some photographic treats to share from a quick jaunt in the Wetlands Centre this morning.

Todays theme is : "Bugs but not bees." No offense to my bee friends, but my blog has almost turned into a hive with the number of bee snaps recently! So something a little different to follow....

Anyone who has been to the wetland centre will know that there is a great flower bed that greats you as you walk over from the carpark. This has been a favorite place of mine with my recent interest in bees as it is always replete with pollinators. Whilst snapping away, a bug caught my eye as it didnt quite match any of the bee patterns that I have been learning over the past few weeks. "Ho hum" thinks I, and I only just managed to snap a photo of it before it flew away. This bug was no bee. A real master of disguise with its Carder-bee-esque honey colours fur, tipped with a Buff-tailed rear, this fellow is in fact a hoverfly! Here is another pic i found on the web for an ID http://www.uknature.co.uk/A.superbiens-info.html 

I felt quite pleased with myself after that spot :) But this morning was going to get even better. Whilst wandering towards the wader scrape hide, I caught a glimpse of colour flitting around in the grasses. Before I knew it, I was surrounded by 6 spot Burnets - A stunning day flying moth. Needless to say, I was happy to sit snapping away for quite some time! 

Here is some info about these little beasties....

http://www.butterfly-conservation.org/Moth/37/Moth.html?MothId=143&Country=&Size=&Colour=&Features=&Family=

And finally.... I have been rabbiting on recently about the BIG BUTTERFLY COUNT. This is a big project throughout the UK at the moment trying to encourage people to spend 15mins spotting butterflies. Is there any excuse to not be able to find such a tiny piece of time free to pop out and watch these great creatures?! If you haven't already, get involved!!! 

http://www.bigbutterflycount.org/

Here are two snaps I took for ID purposes during the 3rd 15 minute count that I have done so far! Today's totals: 4 meadow brown and 3 Gatekeeper (2 little white eyes in the black wing spot)