Beamish Hall & Black Plantation

 Coffee and scone in the Coach House at Beamish with some friends then a walk around the grounds. The pond held a nice surprise in the form of a distant male Broad-bodied Chaser. A few other water bourn insects were also on the pond. Unfortunately, I didn’t manage to get any images of the Small Pearl-bordered Fritillary butterflies at Black Plantation as not one of them would settle. I did however get a Golden-ringed Dragonfly (thanks Brian for the info).

Broad-bodied Chaser.

Common Pond Skater.

Whirligig Beetle.

Backswimmer.

Golden-ringed Dragonfly.

Large Skipper Butterfly.

Plant Bug.

Hoverfly hovering.

Bloch-winged Hoverfly hovering?

Common Yellow Sally.

Sawfly.

Three Firsts…

 …for me today, my first Bee-flies and Mining Bees of the year and my first ever 10-spot Ladybird and a canny coffee and cheese scone as well.

Bee-fly first of the year.

Tawny Mining Bee.

Another Mining Bee.

This one seems to be trying to take the pollen from the legs of another Bee.

There were a few Mining Bees around.

This one was coming into land.

Carder Bee. 

My first 10-spot Ladybird with a 7-spot.

7-spot Ladybirds doing what comes naturally.

Work

 I used to take my camera to work on a regular basis but for some unknown reason I stopped doing it. I have however had it at work on a couple of occasions recently and this is what I found.

My first Dingy Skipper butterfly of the year.

Harlequin Ladybird.

14-spot Ladybird.

A Beetle.

Hoverfly Sp.

Mining Bee?

Fly Sp.

Soldier Beetle.

And it’s always great to see the Swallows back.

Stoat v Rabbit

A short video taken on my iPhone at work the other day not for the squeamish. 

Not what I expected to see yesterday

 As the title says not what I expected to see on a short walk along Beamish Burn a Little Egret stirring the mud looking for bait. 

May at work

 Instead of doing individual days or weeks I thought I would combine most of the images from work into one Blog. However, there are a few images so it makes for a big Blog. I have left them in the order they were shot and once again I’m rubbish with the identification of most of the insects.

The Swallows have returned but they are not nesting in their usual place.

Orange-tip Butterfly.

It looks like a Hoverfly but its eyes are too far apart so ?

Leafhopper?

Spider.

Bug.

Longhorn Moth.

St Mark's Fly?

Sawfly?

Nettle-tap

Another Longhorn Moth.

Male German Scorpionfly.

The best shot I could get of this Longhorn Beetle.

Eristalis sp. of Hoverfly

My first Dingy Skipper Butterfly of the year with a Hoverfly in attendance.

Pyrausta purpuralis Moth.

Hoverfly.

The only thing which looks vaguely familiar to this is a Nomad Bee sp.

Tortricidae Ancylis sp. of Moth.

Caterpillar.

This Song Thrush was sitting on the jib of a crane singing its head off.

It then moved to this pine tree and continued singing.

Buzzard with what looks like some kind of wading bird in its talons.

Another Tortricidae Ancylis sp. of Moth.

I have never seen one before so I haven’t a clue what this caterpillar is although I know it’s a very poor image of it.