20 April 2010

whitford dunes sunday

A lovely sunny day out of the wind, wife had the newspaper and a sleep so I got stuck in to some insect photography.


This lovely staphylinid about 2.5cm long waas encountered on the seawall from Frog lane.


Melasoma (=Chrysomela) populi [Red Poplar Leaf Beetle] in very small numbers on the dwarf willow (Salix repens).

Pyrausta cingulata on the dunes


Osmia bicolor [Two Coloured Mason Bee] checking out a few snail shells in which they nest



and Cicindela maritima [Dune Tiger Beetle] on the shore/dune edge.

2 comments:

Barry Stewart said...

Ian hope you don't mind me adding a few popular common names to your post. I've only seen Two Coloured Mason Bee at Overton, but I didn't know it nested in snail shells. NBN shows how restricted this species' distribution is in Wales http://data.nbn.org.uk/interactive/map.jsp?srchSp=NHMSYS0000876502

i.f.tew said...

Excellent, don't mind at all Barry. I was disappointed, thought it was a very clever programme that put in the missing bits! Map covers the whole of the Gower for the Osmia. Paul Alton has seen it at Oxwich as well.