Newport Garden Log - 11 Apr 20

Another day in lock-down. All records from home at the moment.

Two new bird species for my garden year list. A distant calling Pheasant went in the log at 06:30 possibly courtesy of the silence instigated by the Covid lock-down. The later a single Greylag Goose flew over, this my first for several years since the geese local flocks at Aqualate ceased to regularly fly over.

Also of note was my first Chiffchaff heard in song from the garden.

I think it was too warm for many of the insects. I noted many hoverflies perching on leaves as normal, and then crawling around to the underside ....

List for the day
Birds
Greylag Goose, Canada Goose, Mallard, Cormorant, Pheasant, Common Buzzard, Feral Pigeon, Wood Pigeon, Magpie, Jackdaw, Rook, Carrion Crow, Blue Tit, Great Tit, Coal Tit, Long-tailed Tit, House Martin, Chiffchaff, Blackcap, Wren, Starling, Blackbird, Robin, Dunnock, House Sparrow, Pied Wagtail, Greenfinch, Goldfinch

Butterflies
Holly Blue (Celastrina argiolus)

Bees etc
Andrena scotica (mining bee)
Nomad Bee sp.
? Buff-tailed Bumblebee (Bombus terrestris)
?Spider-hunting wasp sp. Auplopus carbonarius

Hoverflies
Tapered Drone Fly (Eristalis pertinax)
Chequered Hoverfly (Melanostoma scalare)
Epistrophe eligans

Flies
Muscid fly – ?Phaonia gobertii

Aphid
?Shallot Aphid (Myzus ascalonicus)

Spiders
? Larinioides cornutus
Metellina segmentata
Zygiella x-notata
unidentified dark-bodied spider

And today’s images

Towards dusk a drake Mallard landed on the roof of a nearby house – the first I can recall doing so here.

Here having a good stretch and a squawk. Note that in the evening light the gloss on the head looks purple rather than the usual green.

A surprised-looking Wood Pigeon. Gives a good view of the grey rump. Note a single unusual coloured feather in the right wing.

Peering out of the vegetation is my first garden Long-tailed Tit for several weeks.

Staying undercover.

This Holly Blue (Celastrina argiolus) is helpfully resting with its wings partly open. The very thin black edge to the wing indicates this is a male.

Another male.

This Andrena scotica mining bee is cleaning one of its antenna with a foreleg.

I have struggled with bumblebees this year as they have tended to stay on the wing and been hard to see. I managed to get a blurred shot of this passing specimen. Sadly it did not really help! Superficially it looks like a ‘white-tailed bumblebee’. I read that this species is now recognised as a species-complex – White-tailed Bumblebee (Bombus lucorum); Northern White-tailed Bumblebee, (Bombus magnus); Cryptic Bumblebee (Bombus cryptarum). I also read that workers of this group are virtually indistinguishable from Buff-tailed Bumblebee (Bombus terrestris). Then there are the related cuckoo bees .... So your guess is as good as mine, but having studied photos on the web I will go for “possible Buff-tailed Bumblebee”.

A nice sunny portrait of a Chequered Hoverfly (Melanostoma scalare)

This view of an Epistrophe eligans hoverfly shows the yellow facial hairs of this species.

This grey-chequered Muscid fly seems to be Phaonia gobertii (no vernacular name)

Is this a small unusually long-winged fly with very long antenna? Well apparently not. It is the winged form of an aphid. There are not too many illustrations on the web but this seems to be a good match for a Shallot Aphid (Myzus ascalonicus). It was another ‘uPvC special’ on a window frame as was ...

.... this small insect, also long-winged and with long antenna.

A side-elevation shot reveals this to be a species of wasp. The closest I can get is one of the spider-hunting wasps Auplopus carbonarius.

This is a small orb-web spider. Difficult to specifically identify. I am going with Larinioides cornutus, but ...

Just how small is evident when I placed the tip of a blade of grass alongside (not quite in focus – sorry)

This is another very small spider and even winding up the contrast in Photoshop (as here) fails to reveal and patterning on the body. The contrasting pale legs also lack markings. Cannot come up with any identification of this. Yet another ‘uPvC special’

After having mown all the violets yesterday more were back in flower today giving me an opportunity to try for a proper identification. Here is a flower ....

.... and here the leaves. I have a rather poor sense of smell. As far as I could tell they did not smell. After studying my flora books I think this is a Common Dog-Violet (Viola riviniana).

(Ed Wilson)