wildlife

[Anthony Darby]

A friend has just made me a weta hotel.

[Anthony Darby]

Here's what I hope will take up residence. This one's a male.

[TC]

I was cleaning the weeds from the greenhouse grit plunge when I found this insect crawling about. It seemed intent in trying to get under the soil again when I lifted it out.

It was approx. 10mm in length and iridescent.  Any ideas as I have failed to find it in any UK Insect recognition book.

[Maggi Young]

Must have been going to a party dressed like that, Tom.  Might be a Cuckoo wasp  - Chrysis sp. - though what it would be doing in Ayrshire I don't know. 

[Graham Catlow]

Ruby-tailed Wasp (Chrysis ignita) I think.

[Maggi Young]

http://www.bwars.com/index.php?q=category/taxonomic-hierarchy/wasp/chrysididae/chrysidinae/chrysis/chrysis-ignita
Photo (C) Josef Dvorak www.biolib.cz for BWARS




Photo from wikimedia 


"Chrysis April 2008-1" by Alvesgaspar - Own work. Licensed under CC BY-SA 3.0 via Wikimedia Commons - https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Chrysis_April_2008-1.jpg#/media/File:Chrysis_April_2008-1.jpghttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cuckoo_wasp   

[TC]

 I never though about wasps and only looked up flies !  As it seems harmless I will put it back into the greenhouse soil.

This year we had a Humming bird hawk moth in the garden and a Holly blue butterfly on the same warm April day.  Both were a couple of hundred miles farther North than they should have been.

[Chris Johnson]

This year we had a Humming bird hawk moth in the garden and a Holly blue butterfly on the same warm April day.  Both were a couple of hundred miles farther North than they should have been.

Hi Tom

Holly Blue is a remarkable record and well outside its normal range. However, Hummingbird Hawk-moth is a regular, if infrequent, migrant over all of Scotland including numerous records from Orkney and Shetland.

[wooden shoe]

I was just preparing some foto's of my 'bee hotel'. I placed it in the garden to support the bees and for overall enjoyment of myself while obeserving them.
Alas it is more a wasp hotel. It seems that it is mostly inhabited by a wasp Symmorphis bifasciatus, which cleans my garden from small caterpillars, so that's a good job too. And this wasp does not attack and does not like lemonade, so it's welcome. And furthermore I see some varieties of small black bees which I think is be the small campanula bee Chelostoma campunularum and some other species, but these are too fast to take a proper photograph.
But those are the regular inhabitants...
Rob

[wooden shoe]

The Chrysis ignita is around here too to lay their eggs in the well prepared nesting hole of the Symmorphis wasps so their young can eat both the caterpillars which are meant for the larvea of the Symmorphis and the larvea itself as well. That sounds pretty horrific for such a juwely creature.
But some more strange critters are around. Gasteruption erythrostomum does not need to dive into the nest. It can lay eggs through the clay 'doors' that Symmorphis uses to close down the nests. Once you get to know more about this it is really very fascinating.

[wooden shoe]

Not everyone likes my hotel. Some bees like more the blue bedding of a Campanula. It looks rather cosy. I know that some Chelastoma males like to stay overnight and in bad weather like this, but I could not identify these. Anyone else?

[Maggi Young]

Wow, this is fascinating Rob  -  Thank you!

[Anthony Darby]

Leaf cutters?

[wooden shoe]

Megachile centuncularis? Seems not unlikely to me Anthony. I will look for the cutout leaves in the vicinity.
Thanks.

[TC]

Chris.

I am sure that the Hawk moth had just hatched out locally as it was in pristine condition.  Two years ago I had one in the garden in June and then found a larva crawling along the garden path in August.  I collected it and gave it to my grandchildren in Edinburgh who overwintered it in their garage in Edinburgh hoping to have a moth hatch out but when they checked it in April, there was no trace of it.

I found out from a member of our local Scottish Ornithologists Group that there has been a colony of Holly Blues in Belle isle park in Ayr, for over 10 years.
My garden would also seem to be the ideal habitat with the gable wall covered in ivy and a mature Holly tree within 8 feet of the ivy.
I am convinced that my Holly Blue had just hatched in the period of warm weather as it was in a fresh condition..