Lockdown days

I am on holiday and I like being at home on holiday, I often feel I don't spend nearly enough time at home. However, it would be better if it wasn't these circumstances. I am more and more shocked by the brassneck of the government, "There is PPE." vs the reality in the health service, at least in some locations across the UK, "There's very little PPE." It also struck me as deeply cynical to ask retired NHS staff to return to the service when statistically these folk, 60 years + are really quite vulnerable. Of course many of those people will "answer the call" because that's why they did the job in the first place, and of course, due to lack of PPE, due to repeated infection, a significant proportion of these volunteers will die. There's all sorts of other aspects of this situation which concerns me but I guess we will see how it pans out, of course some people won't be around to see how it pans out.

The bed I finished digging over today. We'd covered it in cardboard so it shouldn't have been too bad, these are the roots I took out of it. It was bad.

I also had a go at identifying some beetles today. The first came out as family Leiodidae; time to give up on that then, 90 odd species mostly done on male genitalia. The second one was a Staphylinidae and I seemed to be going along ok, got to Bledius and then asked for help before attempting to go further. Good job I did, actually Aleocharinae a fiendishly difficult sub family.

5mm long Aleocharinae, Geostiba circellaris was suggested as a guess, I've tried to follow that up but haven't got very far other than geographically it's feasible. I should really just give up, these are very, very difficult.

This is Creophilus maxillosus, a large Staphy.

I'd not seen one of these before and had trouble identifying it as I rescued it from a puddle and the pale hairs couldn't be seen as it was damp. I then kept it in a damp tube.... Only when it dried out did it become obvious what it was but by then I'd already got expert help.

Coltsfoot and Butterbur were found at the same location, a walk with the dog after we'd gone to fetch the bread we'd ordered.

 Clouded Drab

Hebrew Character

Moth trapping produced Hebrew Character, Clouded Drab and more Common Quakers.

Barynotus moerens

A nice big, relatively easy to identify weevil. Usually associated with Dog's Mercury which is rare here. I've found this species in the garden before.

On the bird front, the first Bonxie, the first Blackwits, it's bloody cold but perhaps spring is here.