more meadow pleasures 3 - Cornish fruit flies

and a brilliant small tortoiseshell (bottom), a wall brown (middle) nowhere near a wall but unusually still for this restless butterfly, and an odd shaped fly with a dog on its back (top).

10 August 2010

Thanks to my friends at Wild about Britain, this fly has been identified as chaetorellia jaceae, a fruit fly that lives on knapweed and related species and is used in other parts of the world as a form of biological control for these plant species where they have become invasive. As a group these flies have very elabotrate mating rituals, and often these sorts of colours to act as bayesian mimicry to put off their predators.

later on 10 August 2010

or is it Chaetostomella cylindrica ? This is the definitive fly for a dog's blog.

more meadow pleasures 2

he insects included these common blues (male and female) on meadowsweet, and a red admiral on knapweed

more meadow pleasures

the knapweed is out and makes a tangled carpet of purple interspersed with tall bunches of fragrant meadowsweet, red sorrel, and the brilliant yellow of bird's foot trefoil. All of these plants act as host to a wide range of insects and the meadows are full of a vast number of them, butterflies, moths, bees, hover flies, grasshoppers,crickets,all busily fuelling up for the serious business ahead.

fritillary mating

you may wonder why we have posted two blurry pictures but if you look closely you can just pick out two blurry orange blobs. These are male and female silver washed fritillary butterflies caught during their courtship dance. I have read about this, but today I saw it for myself for the first time. The male barrel rolls around the female while she flies along in a relatively straight line. If she is suitably impressed she lands and he releases pheromones from the linear scales on his fore-wings, and if she remains impressed they mate. It was so soul satisfying to see this private little ritual.

hoverfly wasps

and it is also that time of year again when wasps start causing a nuisance. This little chap is actually a hoverfly mimicking a wasp (otherwise thumb would not be so close)

more simple pleasures ...Stoke Climsland flower show 2010

In a pleasantly reassuring way the yearly cycle of our lives continues. Many hours of hard work and loving attention go into the annual flower show which although much smaller than many years ago is still well supported. Followers of Spot's blog will be pleased to know that several of the pictures from the blog did quite well in the photography classes. The top two photos show people getting their exibits ready (and tasting them it would seem), and the bottom photo shows the lunch ladies who work extremely hard in the village hall to get lunch ready for all the judges and stewards and organisers and dignitaries (of whom there are few).


and (one of ) the prize winners was ...