Tachina grossa

I saw Tachina grossa today. It's a beast! The body is about 20mm long and I thought it was a queen bumblebee of some kind when I first saw it! You get some idea of size when you see it dwarfing the flower heads of Creeping Thistle Cirsium arvense
This fly is a parasite of large caterpillars.

Little Egrets feeding at Loughor Bridge

This afternoon there were Egrets and Black-headed Gulls feeding in the shallow riffles of the falling tide on the north side of the bridge. These birds seemed to be having very good success at catching ~10cm long, silvery fish.

Cardiff beats Swansea to race for Essex

The now perhaps inappropriately named Essex Skipper has for some years slowly been increasing it's range in the UK, and is another potential new insect colonist for our area. The species was found in Cardiff in the last few days by Gareth Stamp, who can now claim Glamorgan's first record. Given how easy it is to overlook, it's not inconceivable that it might already have reached our patch too and I urge anyone with an interest in butterflies to take a closer look at any Small Skippers they come across. Gareth has kindly sent me some of his images of the Cardiff specimen, which shows clearly the black tip to the antennae.

A word of warning however, Small Skipper also looks like it has a black tip, but when you look closer the underside of the tip is actually orange-brown. To be an Essex Skipper it must have a black underside to the tips of antennae, without any orange. To see this subtle difference click here www.ukbutterflies.co.uk/species.php?species=sylvestris [tip - click on male underside image to view antenna detail]

Mothing at Pant-y-sais

Hedya salicella (c) Chris Manley

Steve Whitehouse and gang made a trip from the Midlands to look for Scarce Burnished Brass at Pant-y-sais lat Saturday evening. Chris Manley, Mike Powell and myself joined them on a very damp and drizzly night. A Grasshopper Warbler reeled from the soaked reeds as we set the traps along the newly constructed boardwalk and Tennant Canal. Unfortunately, despite setting 9 traps, we failed to find the target species, but did manage to log just short of 100 species. The highlights included Hedya salicella (only 5th county record), 2 Epinotia brunnichana, 1 Donacaula forficella, 1 Dentated Pug, 2 Black Arches, 4 Round-winged Muslin, 25 Southern Wainscot, 2 Suspected, 3 Double Kidney, 1 Double Lobed, 20 Haworth's Minor, 15 Crescent, 1 Webb's Wainscot, 40 Small Rufous, 1 Scarce Silver Lines, 1 Oak Nycteoline and 40+ Marsh Oblique-barred (a tick for all of the midland gang!).

Epinotia brunnichana

dark and light forms of the Crescent

Eelgrass off Crofty

Back on the 22nd July, Sandra and myself took a walk over the mudflats off Crofty to look for Eelgrass (Zostera marina intertidal 'angustifolia' form), which in Glamorgan was known only from Oxwich Bay back in the mid-1970s. Unfortunately the tide was only just starting to drop, but after 30 mins or so, on the mud below the lower edge of the Cord-grass (Spartina anglica) marsh we found several patches of this plant, much favoured by Brent Geese in winter. It is likely the species occurs elsewhere along the south shore of the Burry and we'll be making a few more trips out onto the mudflats to investigate other likely spots.

Digger Wasp

This is the Red Banded Sand Wasp Ammophila sabulosa. The female digs a hole/nest and stocks it with insects paralysed by her sting. She then lays eggs into this larder and the grubs rely on the stored food until they pupate.and here she is digging away....

Bombus hypnorum, back in the Garden

Further to my first sighting of Bombus hypnorum in the garden on Thursday and the request for info on the plant that it was feeding from; I was taking a few photo's of the plant when a B. hypnorum came back. The size of the bee suggests a worker to me? Feel free to identify the plant.