.. is the name of
a famous London eatery. It's also a vital resource for insects - and therefore insect-eating birds - as the year comes to a close. Friday was sunny much of the time, and the ivy plants on the bridge over the
bief were swarming with insects.
What I know about insects could be written on a very small postage stamp, but Tim helped me with the identification, as far as the family level anyway. One critter defeated us both completely, my thanks to
Susan for identifying it. There were some very striking animals among the ones we saw and I can understand the fascination that insects have for so many people.. Here are a few.
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| 1. Ivy bee - Colletes hederae |
Colletes hederae is a recent addition to the list of European bees, being described as new to science in 1993. It was first recorded in Britain in 2001. Appropriately, it is collecting ivy pollen.
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| 2, Colletes hederae |
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| 3. Colletes hederae |
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| 4. Tapered Drone Fly eristalis pertinax, male |
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| 5. Tachinid - Ectophasia crassipennis (male) |
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| 6. Ectophasia crassipennis |
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| 7. Ectophasia crassipennis |
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| 8. Ectophasia crassipennis |
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| 9. Left - Ectophasia crassipennis Right - drone fly eristalis sp |
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| 10. As above, lightened |
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| 11. Episyrphus balteatus - the marmalade hoverfly |
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| 12. Milesia crabroniformis |
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| 13. Milesia crabroniformis |
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| 14. Drone fly eristalis spp (centre) with another small fly, probably Amphidae |
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| 15. Drone fly eristalis sp |
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16. The German wasp or European Wasp, vespula germanica, la guêpe germanique, and a friend
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5 comments:
Photo#4= Tapered Drone Fly Eristalis pertinax, male.
Photo#9+10= Ectophasia crassipennis on the left. How can you tell the one on the right is Eristalis interruptus? Could be tenax, maybe even arbustorum. Eristalis sp is the best I can do.
Photo#14+15=Eristalis sp, probably tenax. His small friend is probably an Anthomyidae.
To tell the Eristalis spp apart you need to see their legs.
Nice sighting of the Ivy Bee. I haven't seen it yet, so jealous.
It is sad to see the Ivy with all its activity passing but at least the summer weather continues. I have noted a large number of bumble bee mimics this year. From a distance the only way I can tell they are not bees is that they lack the long antennae and have only those stubby ones that flies have. Great photographs. Amelia
Thanks for the IDs Susan, I've updated the captions. The closer I look at the pictures the more creatures I see. It's fascinating. I could have gone on photographing all day and still not picked up all the species using the ivy. I daren't mention the spiders in there too. Colletes hederae was present in numbers and there's a big study going on in UK.
The Bees Wasps and Ants Recording Society has a factsheet about colletes hederae at http://www.bwars.com/sites/www.bwars.com/files/info_sheets/01_Colletes_hederae_20100908.pdf
I have seen quite a few ivy bees here in South Devon recently; even today I saw one or two on the coast near Torquay and we are nearly November.
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