The middle of May already and the lockdown has eased slightly but we haven’t felt inclined to travel further afield at the moment. The weather has been amazing throughout this spell and I for one am enjoying time in my garden. When I get a chance of a few moments or if we are just taking the dogs for a short walk we go down the lane close to home, Greenway lane and into the little Spinney at the bottom of the lane bordering the Stour. I could spend many a happy hour just checking out the wildlife and particularly at this time the small things and with this warm weather it seems to have brought out a wealth of insects to enjoy.
The Damselflies are hatching at the moment as I have said in a previous post, they love the confines of the lane which is bordered by two hedgerows with plenty of wildflowers and vegetation edging the hedgerows, I do hope they don’t cut the lane too early! This time I saw White Legged Damselflies, males and females hunting the lane, they are quite small and they can easily be missed with Azure Blues and Large Red Damselflies in the Spinney. Five species seen on ‘my patch’ so far!
Then it’s the insects which are sometimes difficult to find they are so small but it’s great getting close and then taking and image home and finding out what they are! I enjoy seeing the variety and the complex nature of their structure and I haven’t hardly started on the insect world there is such a variety.
The Dock Shield Bug fairly large and easy to spot on it’s host, Dock leaves.
A tiny little Malachite Beetle around 6mm long, easily missed
The Dock leaves are being devastated by the small Dock Beetles, they are called the Organic Farmer’s friend as they control docks in fields although you wouldn’t want them on your garden Rhubarb as they feed off that as well! Attractive green and bronze sheen as you get close to them. The female has an abdomen so swollen with eggs while the smaller male tries to mate with her.
