Today we had a little family gathering for Izzy’s birthday.  She is 2 next Friday.  My sister came along with her 3 children.  We let the older two loose with bug pots.  Amber managed to catch a bumblebee, brave Amber, but later I took them up to see the Ragwort behind the labavan.

Finlay, super enthusiastic as ever, caught a strange looking creature.  It had quite a blunt head.  John thought it looked like a cricket and Jane was looking up leafhoppers.  It was fairly lively at first but seemed to die quite quickly.  Strange.

It got put on the side for later.  After, yes after, the clearing up was done, I had a look.  I was pretty sure Jane was on the right lines with the Leafhoppers but couldn’t quite match it up to anything so got my stronger lenses out.

AH!  It all makes sense now.  This creature has no head.  Finlay must have decapitated it with the bug pot lid.  Amazingly I still managed to identify it.  It was a Mirid Bug (Stenodema laevigata).   These are abundant in long grass of all kinds.  I have to say I’ve never noticed one before.  Its camouflage is impeccable.

Stenodema laevigata (Complete with head)

Today has been botany day number three.  I need to change the name as I didn’t identify many plants, well five (and a very exciting Jelly lichen).  It was sunny and the summer (what summer?) will soon be over so I thought I’d look for mini beasts.

Around the back of the labavan is a small strip of land we leave to nature.  Here lives the most popular plant in the garden, a Common Ragwort (Senecio jacobaea).  It was absolutely teeming with Hover flies, Bees, Beetles, Bugs and other mini beasts.  I don’t know how many times I went behind the back of the labavan with the bug pot but it will have confused some of the neighbours, if they were watching.  Every time I looked there was something different. I stopped and had my tea after 13 species.  If you added up all the time I was actually looking at the Ragwort is was probably only about 20 minutes.

Common Ragwort (Senecio jacobaea)

Most of you will know how controversial Ragwort is.  OK it does cause genuine harm to horses and cattle if it gets in their hay.  However, I feel it’s the Badger of the plant world.  Let’s not get hysterical please.  It is a native plant with many invertebrate species totally dependant on it.  The Buglife website sums it up well.

In total 3 Chapel Terrace now has 64 plant and fungi species, 44 mini beasts and 35 birds and mammals recorded.  That’s 143 living types of thing.  MASSIVE!

I’ve had a lot of fun today and John killed a record number of Lesser House Flies while he was looking after the kids ( I made him do the hoovering!)

Toodloo.

Yes I’d like many less (fewer) of you please.

Lesser House Fly (Fannia canicularis). The little s**t.

It’s nice to identify things that seem rare and exotic but even better to get the common stuff that’s driving you mad.  These are the pissy little flies that swarm around the living room light when it’s not even on.  Apparently this is a territorial patrol only conducted by the males.  John is tall and his head collides with them.  He goes ballistic with the fly swat like a deranged mad-man on speed.  Sometimes he even has baby Ted strapped to him while he passionately pursues his killing spree.

As these guys breed in and regularly visit dung (there’s lots of pastoral fields around here) John is doing a splendid and well justified job.  The identification of this species seemed pretty easy.  The specimens were, of course, all stone dead which helped.  My two insect books described their behaviour as follows:

‘Male flies incessantly around lights and other objects indoors’

and

‘Abundant in houses where males circle relentlessly around lights and other objects.’

THAT’S THE BUG*ER!

(P.S.  The species list has been updated)