Seek and you may find...

And if you don't look you won't find anything!

Despite dissecting a good few berries I couldn't find the culprit that appears to be burrowing into them.

 

The Hawthorn hedge, where there are a few berries to check.

 

The damp fields below the house are full of Juncus effusus, Soft Rush. Last year I found the case bearer Coleophora alticolella for the first time, after I'd been given the heads up to look. Just examine the seed heads and you should see little "rice grains". I've looked for this year in the last few days and found them again, in their hundreds. Examination has again, so far, just found the one species of moth C. alticolella, there is a congener that behaves in a similar manner, the caterpillars are separable with careful examination.

 

That may be a Hymenopteran egg on the case. A number of species parasitise these caterpillars. I was led to a Durham University PhD paper about the development and parasitisation of C. alticolella which was an interesting read.

Coleophora alticolella, lateral scleretised spots reduce in size S1 to S3, oddly this one did not have a sceleretised spot on abdominal S9.

These flies, big and buzzy, have been around the entrance to the moth trap at night. Eventually, I managed to catch some and with help, thanks SW, got to the identification of Polietes meridionalis, a species only identified in the UK in 2015. There is a congener, P. lardarius, but I haven't found that yet. To be honest they're a bit of a pain, buzzing around the entrance to the trap, and they are large. Identified by the yellow face and yellow front thoracic spiracle, those bits are grey on P. lardarius.

Polietes meridionalis.

Another light trap intruder, found when I was cleaning it up later on was this Psocoptera (barkfly).

Graphopsocus cruciatus,

The last new insect of the week, well there will be more once I get around to all the Hymenoptera, and there was a beetle in these Gorse pods as well as this caterpillar of Cydia ulicetana.

Cydia ulicetana in Gorse seed pod.

On the bird front the Pink-feet are arriving, flocks on three days in a row.

Pink-feet arriving.

Reed Bunting, numbers increase in October with some migrants arriving.

Pied Wagtail, birds moving through and numbers decreasing through the month.

The moth traps have been having some long overdue maintenance. Checking wiring, replacing connections etc. I temporarily swapped the 20W Wemlite, which I've used for a long time and is rather wobbly for a newer model. It didn't last long.

Water most likely the cause.

So I ordered some new bulbs from Paul Batty - http://www.pwbelg.clara.net/mercury/ and a new bulb holder, a ceramic one just in case I do want to run an MV. I managed to get the last 20W Wemlite in stock and a 13W version to test. But I also thought I'd have another go with an LED, my previous one I used years back was not a great success but these 9W ones look as if they may be the business. The plan is to have a bulb holder by the back wall that I can keep an eye on, as well as the usual traps. A 9W LED will go in combo with a synergetic in my Robinson.

9W LED, 20W Wemlight, bulb holder and 13W Wemlight.

And here's the Sun partially obscure (not by clouds!) but by North American smoke.

The Sun