Dotted Border pupates

A caterpillar that I found feeding on oak in Hawksworth Wood on the 14th May has now pupated.
The distinctive colouration of the pupa has now enabled me to identify the caterpillar as that of the Dotted Border (Agriopis marginaria).
Now the challenge is to try and keep it in the hope of the adult being the flightless female which I have never seen.

The Grinning Egg

I thought that I had found some moth eggs on the undersurface of an elm leaf this morning but then realised that I had been caught out like this before!

Remember the story of the Ova with smiley faces?

Ichneumon pupa ex Dun-bar larva

I have been rearing a caterpillar of the Dun-bar (Cosmia trapezina) found on Beech at Hawksworth wood on 14th May 2011.

Yesterday, I looked inside its container to find that the caterpillar's innards are now contained within the pupa of an ichneumon wasp. Mark Shaw has since identified this for me as Scirtetes robustus.

It will be fascinating to see what the resultant parasitoid imago looks like.

The Oxford Bee Company and Orange Tips

Very blustery weather has predominated over the last couple of days but the continuing bright sunshine is appreciated by most of us.

There is a profusion of Garlic Mustard (Alliaria petiolata) growing by the roadsides and many of these stems are now dotted with the bright orange eggs of the Orange Tip butterfly.

Red Mason Bees (Osmia rufa) are busy cementing up the cardboard tubes of my Oxford Bee Company nesting box.

Campoplex sp.

Another parasitoid, this one emerging in a container full of teasel heads collected from the Knaresborough bypass.

I am assuming that the host was a larva of the tortricid moth Endothenia gentianaeana as these seem to occupy most of the teasels here.

Grass Wood

Grass Wood, near Grassington in North Yorkshire is an area of ash woodland with an under-storey of hazel and bird-cherry. Yesterday morning I had chance for a brief foray into the wood and on the south-east facing part of a sycamore trunk I noticed a patch of lichens. Closer examination of the lichen revealed a couple of resting micro-moths that I recognised as belonging to the Phyllonorycter genus. These could well be examples of "Nut Leaf Blister Moth" (Phyllonorycter coryli). There are actually two of them on the lower photograph here, demonstrating their camouflage!

Spring Sunshine

Beautiful Spring sunshine again today. I decided to wait in the garden in the hope of seeing my first Orange Tip and Holly Blue of the year. The first butterfly to catch my eye was a Speckled Wood which seemed to be admiring its own reflection on a dead laurel leaf. A couple of Large Whites flew through and a Comma stayed for a couple of minutes. No Orange Tips yet but a Holly Blue showed interest in one of my topiaried trees. I'm not good at Ladybird identification so if anyone can recognise these three............

I am thinking they could be Harlequin (Harmonia axyridis), Pine Ladybird (Exochomus 4-pustulatus) and Orange Ladybird (Halyzia 16-guttata).