We have a nice start to the Spring today, after some of the "drear" we've had this week....
Last
night the Wikileaks were around... possibly in the meadow... for those
that don't know us, the Wikileaks are Stone Curlews [Burhinus oedicnemus] Oedicnème
criard...
their call sounds like "wikileaks...wikileaks...wikileaks"!
Today, in the warmth....19 Centigrade.... the Brimstones [Gonepteryx rahmni] le Citron and other butterflies were all around us...
male [probably] Mason Bees [Osmia rufa] l'Osmie were hanging around in front of the insect hotel...
Pauline sat deafened by one of the Wrens [Troglodytes troglodytes] Troglodyte mignon...
it ignored her presence and pumped itself up into a frenzy of song.
Wall lizards were out in force... and to cap it all on the reptile front...
a Viperine Snake [Natrix maura] Coulevre vipérene was soaking up the warmth on the barn door!!
I decided, given the warmth, to set up the moth trap....
even though the moon is almost full I will catch something....
on my way back to the house from turning it on... I saw a bat...
so sat with the bat detector on my lap, my back warmed by the house wall...
a useful ten minutes...
Common, Kuhls and Nathius's Pipistrelles all registered as top bat choice....
as did a Lesser Horseshoe!!
Photos/corrections to follow...
5 comments:
I bet your O. rufa turns out to be O. cornuta. It's easy to tell males -- white faces and long antennae. O. cornuta is much redder than O. rufa, btw. I'm making the bet based on my observation that a) O.cornuta seems to emerge before O. rufa; and b) O. cornuta appears to be more common here.
I'll go take some pix later.... just mothing at the moment!
Things are hotting up in the garden here too. I agree with Susan that you have male O.cornuta at the moment. There seems a lot of them this year. Yesterday I saw the first females which seems early, without checking. Amelia
Thanks Amelia...
interestingly, but typical, they haven't been humming around since...
but, yes, I thought it was early for the O. rufa...
however I didn't appreciate there was another...
are O. cornuta larger than O. rufa??...
because that was my impression...
I'll have to get Susan to take a closer look at some of my previous pix... and I'll put an early date, previous year picture up on this post.
Susan & Amelia..... Ostia cornstarch! Sorry, autocorrect is on.... Osmia cornuta it is.... one of the males landed on my arm as I was trying to get a picture....and his little white face was verrry obvious!!
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