First Butterfly Sighting and Other Insects in the Garden

 

At long last, the day finally arrived! I saw my first butterfly of the year, a smart male Brimstone, gracing our garden yesterday. 

But there were other sights to catch my attention as I took a careful look around this morning. One of these was the bee you see in the photo above and in the photo below. 

 

I watched as the bee squeezed herself in and out of the curled leaf. I know little about bees, but I am guessing she was a queen bumblebee, and that she had passed the winter hibernating in the patch of leaf litter. I spent several minutes watching her.

Something else 'bee-like' stopped me in my tracks. It was what I think may be a Red-mason bee, though, as ever, please correct me by leaving a comment. 

As you can see in the photo above, this little bee was soon joined by a much more ferocious-looking insect (is it a wasp or a wasp-mimic?). I waited to see what would happen next, and after just a few short seconds, the bee took off.

It seems to have been a good day for bees here. Look at the golden pollen in this Honeybee's 'saddlebags'! 

I have not been able to identify the fly in the  photo above yet, but wonder if it is a Soldier Fly. Update: it's hard to see what lies under the wings, but I'm wondering if this is more likely to be Meliscaeva auricollis.

Let's have a brief 'insect interlude' to make way for the cheering sight of this blossom. I love seeing the colourful flowers once again.

But, of course, it's not just the plants that bring colour. The photos below show the distinctive reds and oranges of our 7-spot Ladybirds. The one in the next photo has an unusual mark on its elytra. There are certainly two, and probably three, 7-spots in the second picture, along with a Pine Ladybird. 

I was delighted to discover more Violets in the garden this morning. And finally, what a joy it was to see the Brimstone, even if I was unable to take its photograph. I saw the one below in 2019. 

I see I have almost completed a year of the Butterfly Conservation Garden Butterfly Survey. Having failed to spot any butterflies in January and February a year ago, I began to log my sightings at end of March 2020.

Home Patch (29): Harlequin

f. succinea (Harlequin ladybird)

This seems to be one of the 100+ colour pattern varieties of the Harlequin Ladybird. I found it in the garden this morning, and you may recall that I found a harlequin pupa some weeks ago. The ladybird above was not very large (for a Harlequin), and its elytra had taken a bit of a knock at some stage. It is the first ladybird I have seen for some days.

I am just about to log it on the Harlequin Ladybird survey here.

Nature Reserve Notes (3): Damaged Ladybird

We encountered this battered-looking Ladybird on our walk through our local nature reserve last Sunday. I thought it could be a 7-spot, but the blotchy spots and what appears to be damage to the elytra made it hard to be sure. Neither photo shows off the markings of the pronotum very well.

I wondered whether it had been damaged by a parasitic wasp, but once again, this is only speculation on my part. Unlike other ladybirds I have seen that appear to have been affected in this way, this one was active and was not prepared to wait around for a decent photograph!

POSTSCRIPT: I have now had learned that it is indeed a 7-spot and that 'it could be a genetic mutation that causes this [strange marking] or frost damage.'

As usual I have logged this sighting with the UK Ladybird Survey, and if you find ladybirds in the UK, you might like to do the same. You can read about Dr Helen Roy and her ladybird work here.