Wildlife August 2010

[Mick McLoughlin]

Gunilla,
Your moth looks to be Orygia antiqua or 'Vapourer' moth as it is known in Britain.
A link to a website of Swedish moths:
http://www.pbase.com/coridon/image/110478491

Cheers
Mick

[Peter Maguire]

Cliff,
I've being trying to i-d your dragonfly pictures posted over the last few days - the one on the orange flower seems to be the Common Darter (Sympetrum stroilatum), an immature male.  The other one is a little trickier, as you only show it's face - am I right in thinking that the colour of the abdomen was an orange yellow, which would have clashed horribly with the pink of Sue's cardigan?  . If so then it's also a Common Darter, but an adult male this time. Great picture!

[ranunculus]

Many thanks indeed, Peter ... much appreciated.

[mark smyth]

I got a few surprises in some of my swift nest boxes just now. I've been up the ladder taking down the cameras and scraping the nest box floors to clean them.

About half of the nest boxes are being used by cluster / attic flies. They didnt use them last year.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cluster_fly

Anthony I thought they used traditional sites following scent left by the previous years hibernating flies.
 
Mark

[Anthony Darby]

Pioneers Mark.

[Hans A.]

Two attentive observer in the garden.
Cannot remember to have seen ever a mantis with this colour.

[Anthony Darby]

Many orthopterans can change their colour, at a moult, to match their environment. I have done this with mantids. Not sure if it is a visual thing or or something else. Certainly mantids found on growing vegetation tend to be green whereas those on dry herbage are pale brown. I've never seen one as vidvid as that one.

[Hans A.]

Thanks Anthony - yes, green and pale brown ones are those which are common here.  The strange colour was worth to take some pictures. Here a second one.

[TheOnionMan]

Hans, cool sanguine praying mantis!

For the summer, a faithful tree frog lives beneath a planter on my deck, emerging each night at dusk to sit patiently and hunt insects... what a guy!  He's like a friend, and it seems amiss if we can't find him sometimes, typically making an appearance each night while we watch some TV in the living room with our glass slider door open.  I believe it is a Gray Treefrog or Hyla versicolor, variable in color and markings, but I'm certainly no expert in this and welcome any better identification.

[Armin]

Hans,
your unknown grashopper could be a Anacridium aegyptium "Ägyptische Wanderheuschrecke". Typical are the striped facet eyes. And it is a very good flyer. Size ~30-70mm.
The species is living around the Mediterranean sea countries. Sometimes it gets imported via vegetable transports.
Do you have another picture to show the whole insect?

The mantis is a wunderful insect and confirms you live in a very mild climate.

Mark,
I love frogs! Can't confirm what species it is but it is a lovely appearance.
It is a pity that frogs and other amphibians are the most endangered species worldwide by destruction of their habitats and enviromental pollution.

[fermi de Sousa]

After the heavy rains on the weekend (which caused serious flooding elsewhere) we came down to find a bowl which had been left near the "dry" creek bed had been washed down nearly 10m!

And in the bottom of it and probably unable to hop out was this little frog, most likely to be a Pobblebonk, Limnodynastes dumerilii sitting rather motionlessly.



We were afraid he might've been scared to death or tired out by trying to escape but he revived when released into the garden .
cheers
fermi

[Gunilla]

Gunilla,
Your moth looks to be Orygia antiqua or 'Vapourer' moth as it is known in Britain.
Cheers
Mick

Thanks Mick, I didn't know the English name for it.  Had to look it up in my dictionnary  .