Wildlife October 2010

[Anthony Darby]

A drone fly Tony, which is a honey bee mimic - would you pick one up - that is one of the good guys, being a vital pollinator? The larvae are rat-tailed maggots and are indicators of polluted water.

[Tony Willis]

Anthony

thank you I knew you would know. Yes at first I thought they were bees on the flowers but when they were flying/hovering their legs dangled beneath them. They have just appeared in numbers today.

[ranunculus]

An image captured this afternoon ...

[mark smyth]

At work we have lots of tortoishell butterflies only  but many silver Ys, a long strange brown moth/fly with long antenas and every morning lots of angle shade moths

[Anthony Darby]

Your strange brown mothy thing sounds like a caddis fly mark, but I may be wrong?

[David Lyttle]

This chook wandered into my yard a couple of days ago. The photo is taken from my kitchen through an open door. They have not really established themselves in the wild round here as it is not prime habitat for them. A lot are raised and then released into the wild so people can shoot them. He is possibly looking for a ladybut he might be lucky.

[Brian Ellis]

Let's hope he is not lucky David.  They are the bane of our life, Tulips and other bulbs regularly dug out of the garden!

[David Lyttle]

Brian,

Are you allowed to eat them or do you need to be a member of the landed gentry?

[Brian Ellis]

My lips are sealed

[TheOnionMan]

Aster pilosus is flowering (the flowers wafting an enticing aroma of vanilla cookies for many meters away), enticing to butterflies and bees.  Here is a small orange butterfly, anyone know what it is?

[Anthony Darby]

We call that a Large butterfly Mark. It is an American painted lady (Vanessa virginiensis).

[TheOnionMan]

We call that a Large butterfly Mark. It is an American painted lady (Vanessa virginiensis).

Blooms on Aster pilosus are tiny, this is a small butterfly. The UK must have nano-butterflies if you think this is a large butterfly

[Maggi Young]

à propos large or small butterflies.... it is a source of annoyance to me that many "bug" sites which do have some otherwise good photos and information of such creatures have no reference whatsoever to size and scale.... infuriating! 

[Anthony Darby]

à propos large or small butterflies.... it is a source of annoyance to me that many "bug" sites which do have some otherwise good photos and information of such creatures have no reference whatsoever to size and scale.... infuriating!  

Too true Maggi. It is around 2 to 2½" (getting on for the size of a peacock butterfly) so I consider it big by UK standards. Put it another way, there is no butterfly bigger than a peacock in Scotland!

This site is interesting and has one on a finger for comparison.


http://tywkiwdbi.blogspot.com/2010/06/american-lady-butterfly-vanessa.html

[Maggi Young]

Good link, Anthony, thanks.