Garden Activity

 Monday August 21

We haven't seen, nor heard, a Green Woodpecker for two days now. All I have is a quick shot taken from my desk, through the sun lounge window.

 

Not much activity on the feeders either. The gangs of young tits and Goldfinches seem to have dispersed. House Martins are still feeding their second brood of vociferous young on our neighbour's roof apex, the village Swifts disappeared at the end of July, as is the norm.

I haven't got beetlemania (sic), but they do keep turning up in and around the moth traps. Yesterday, we had a Lesser Stag Beetle, only the second we have found in the garden. I was wiping out the empty moth trap when I noticed the beetle sitting on my cloth. Where did it come from? It wasn't in the trap. I'd shaken it off the cloth before I thought of photographing it.

Length: up to 3cm  

May to September

The lesser stag beetle may be smaller than its famous cousin, but it is still a relatively large beetle with large jaws. Adults can be found in woodland, parkland and hedgerows during the summer; they can often be seen resting in the sun on tree trunks. The larvae depend on old trees and rotting wood to live in and feed on, and both adults and larvae can be found in the decaying wood of ash, common beech and apple. The adults can be seen flying about at night, sometimes coming to outside lights. They mate and lay their eggs in a suitable piece of decaying wood.

                                                                                                                                                                        Wildlife Trusts

A few of the moths we have trapped recently, mined from a plethora of common Noctuids such as Large Yellow Underwings, Turnips, Setaceous Hebrew Characters and Common Rustics. Good to see large numbers (over 250 LYU in one trap) as they are valuable pollinators and bat food , but they do cause a disturbance when they blunder about the trap.

Green Carpet

Figure of Eighty

Broad-barred White


Garden Tiger

This Garden Tiger was found in a flower bed he was weeding, by a thrilled Adrian.He brought it to us and placed it on this orange lid which matched the underwing the moth showed when first situated.

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