Edinburgh

The day after my last post, 20th October, there were a couple of earthquakes here in Shaky Toun. The first one, whilst I was in bed, shook the room, and me and there was a prolonged rumble. The second one, in the afternoon, was of about equal strength, but I was outside in the garage and felt and heard nothing.

Depth of 3km and 3.7 magnitude in the morning, 5km deep and 3.6 magnitude in the afternoon, with plenty of wee after-shocks.

A few days later when the 204 year old European Larch came down in the night, that was also audible from the house (apparently).

 

This disrupted both human travel and that of the Red Squirrel which we watched trying to figure out new routes now its A road had gone.

A couple of mornings Red Squirrels have been in the garden raiding the bird food and generally searching around for an easy meal.

Red Squirrel.

I've been to the city a couple of times recently. The Andy Goldsworthy 50 year retrospecive at the Royal Scottish Academy I might write about elsewhere, it has ended now but it was well worth seeing; art connecting to land and nature. 

I went back to Edinburgh the other day and caught Martin Stephenson and the Daintees playing songs from Boat to Bolivia. On both occasions I did a bit of recording of wildlife in cemeteries, an iRecord activity, the FB Group is here - https://www.facebook.com/groups/257026872679440

Cemeteries in cities are interesting as they seem to attract very large numbers of some species. Laybirds may sometimes be found in huge numbers, on my latest visit there were hundreds of the hopper Ribautiana ulmi on the few remaining green leaves of elm. 

Ribautiana ulmi, on one elm every remaining green leaf was covered on the lower surface with this hopper.

 

On these graveyard excursions I nearly always find a species I've not seen before. At Dalry Cemetery near Haymarket I finally came across Pine Ladybird (Orkney had a very sparse ladybird fauna).

Pine Ladybird Exochomus quadripustulatus

Apparnetly, Pine Ladybird has decreased significantly in Edinburgh in the last couple of years. Harlequin Ladybird has increased significantly in the city and it is known to feed on the eggs and larvae of other ladybird species. These two factors may be related. There were certainly plenty of Harlequins in Dalry Cemetery. I saw at least 100 and that was without searching systematically.

Harlequin Ladybird Harmonia axyridis

This species occurs in a number of colour forms which can make it confusing to identify. There is more information about Harlequins here - https://www.buglife.org.uk/bugs/bug-directory/harlequin-ladybird/  Harlequins are usually quickly identified by Obsidentify if you are in any doubt.

Other inverts are not so straightforward to identify, even with AI help. Ichneumons are notoriously hard - but look in the side panel for links to colour clues to identification ranked by frequency of recording on iNaturalist which may be handy. Obsidentify occasionally gets these correctly, or at least gets to family or genus correctly. Obsi got this to family with a low % of hope but it was correct. The friendly and helpful folk on the FB Group then gave me a definite genus and likely species. Brilliant considering the poor quality of my images in very low light. 

Schizopyga podagrica (thank you OV)

 I'm unsure about the ID of this mirid bug, small at about 3mm.

A Dycyphus species but which one? Current thinking is that this is D. stachydis as the tibial spines are longer than the width of the tibia (thanks for the suggestion PTS). I need to go and find the key and look at this criteria critically for myself.

I did also find a few definite IDs for the pan-species list including this rather smart an easy to ID fly.

Peplomyza litura, the close up of the face is only necessary to separate it from a continental species which has never occurred in the UK. As I had the specimen I ran it through Mike Hackston's Lauxaniidae key anyway. Confusingly NatureSpot gives this species a red dot for ID, IMHO green (maybe orange, it is quite small) would be more appropriate, Obsidentify got it confidently first go.

Although this Anthocorid required gen det.

Terrible in vivo field image, but I managed to catch it.

Lab pic, not much better to be honest!

But here's the business, male gen det proves Anthocoris confusus, NFM, nice!

 

I probably shouldn't count this plant as it is a garden introduction across the UK and given the location probably shouldn't qualify as a neophyte, although I do suspect it has spread beyond its original introduction here.

Oxalis tetraphylla

Garden escapes can often pose a moral conundrum for a P-SL tick. 

I'm still light trapping, three species new for the year the other evening.

Acleris hyamana

December Moth

Two very different looking Mottled Umber.

A new record Red Kite roost count, 137. Redwings in some numbers, a few Fieldfare, a big increase in Woodpigeons, a couple of Redpoll (Lesser in old speak, but now just Redpoll as the AviBase List is adopted) and both Tawny and Barn Owl heard on a number of evenings. 

Red Kites going to roost.