Insects on our Flowers

There have been a few sunny spells here this week, though as I type it looks as if a thunder storm is not very far away. It has been lovely to see insects nectaring on the flower heads. The photo above and the two immediately below show (as you might guess) a Thick-legged Flower Beetle (Oedemera nobilis).

I can tell it is a male by the bulge in its femora.

This species seems to favour the southern half of the UK: I see I recorded these insects at WWT Llanelli back in 2011 when we lived in Swansea. I must add my latest sighting to my home-patch list.  

Bees have been enjoying the yellow Mouse-ear Hawkweed flowers...

...and the less wild Osteospermum (below).

I thought I would share a photo of a corner of our wild patch. It is a shady area, covered by Buddleia and Acer Negundo, the Box Maple. I can see strands of Hawthorn, nettles and a mass of Herb Robert. I suspect the insects (and snails) are there, but I have hardly seen any in this corner of the garden yet.



The photo below shows our insect houses a few weeks ago at the start of May. The only activity I have noticed so far is the scuttling of an occasional ant.

The photo below was taken yesterday: the pansies may not be wild (the mini-pond marks the entrance to the wild patch), but they are looking lovely and will hopefully prove attractive to flying insects of one sort or another.

I am so enjoying the Large Red Damselflies: I wonder whether the water feature is attracting them or whether it is the bramble bush!

I wonder if, like us, you enjoyed Chris Packham's Tree Slug moon graph on BBC Springwatch. This blog attempts to highlight the fact that nature is full of the wild and wonderful; and when we went outside a few minutes ago to look for bats, which failed to appear, we saw a couple of large Cockchafers (or perhaps Stag Beetles) floating around the sky, looking like airborne aliens.