Wildlife July 2013

[fredg]

I found this Pirata piraticus (complete with egg coccoon) running across the water on today's orchid site.

[Anthony Darby]

I wonder if anyone will tell the commentators on the golf that the bird they positively identified as a song thrush in need of its nails cut, and with a beak full of caterpillars, was actually a meadow pipit. 

[fredg]

Another sighting on an orchid site visit.

Geometra papilionaria - Large Emerald

[ArnoldT]

 CHRYSALIS hanging out in a young European beech covered with leaf litter.

[ArnoldT]

Pupa.

[Anthony Darby]

Not yet Arnold. It hasn't made its final moult out of its caterpillar skin.

[fredg]

There we were just sitting enjoying a coffee. Out the corner of your eye you see a little movement in the orchid seedheads. Oh it's just ants, what are they doing up there.
They're farming is what they're doing. They have a herd of black aphids  .
The more photos I took the more aphids I saw.

[Hoy]

Svalbard reindeer and arctic skua. The reindeer is common on Svalbard even inside the town of Longyearbyen.

[Gerdk]

I 'catched' this butterfly a week ago at the Silberberg near Osnabrück -
I would be glad if I'll receive an identification. Thanks in advance!

Gerd

[Anthony Darby]

Marbled white (Melanargia galathea). It's one of the 'brown' butterflies and broadcasts its eggs as it flies. The larvae feed on meadow grasses. Not really found further north than Yorkshire in England.

[Gerdk]

Anthony, Thank you!
I must confess that I expected your answer - .

Gerd

[Roma]

Any ideas on this weird creature I found wriggling around in the bowl where I put water for the birds & squirrels?  It must have been at least 8 inches long and very thin and thread like.  It seemed to be lighter in colour towards the head end and had a slightly swollen darker head.  It was a bit difficult to decide which end was which as both ends were writhing. 

[Hoy]

It is probably a horsehair worm: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nematomorpha

[Roma]

Thanks, Hoy.  The description fits.  It's not something I've seen before.

[Peter Maguire]

I thought that before the month ends, I'd post a few wildlife pictures from a couple of weeks ago - trying out the new bridge camera bought for bird photography. No birds this time though!

Firstly a couple of photos of a Grey Seal Halichoerus grypus in Mallaig harbour - it would seem that this specimen has seen a few fights in his time, judging by the scars.
Then a male Common Blue Damselfly Enallagma cyanthigerum busy eating 'something' (hence the odd appearance around its mouth), and a Four-Spotted Chaser Libellua quadrimaculata both taken in the Trossachs on the next day.