The stuff I forgot and some more.

 A couple of fungal things to kick off with. A rust on Cocksfoot and a mummified Rhingia campestris stuck to a leaf.

Many thanks to LJ who has identified this as a choke, Epichloë typhina. Now I'll need to go and find out what a choke is...

Rhingia campestris fungal attacked by Entomophthora.

Moths:

I do love a Great Brocade, product of SE winds.

There was a Bedstraw Hawk-moth up the road, not in my garden.

This may, or, may not be Depressaria sordidatella, if correct third county record, awaiting judgement.

Autumnal Rustic, first for the year.

Another NFY, Pink-barred Sallow.

The above two from today. A trap stuffed with Large Yellow Underwing, they do drive me a bit mad. There were probably 200 in there, I didn't bother to count. The caddisfly numbers have reduced substantially, to the point where it might be worth trying a trap down at the Wee Wood, a place where a light trap can be completely overwhelmed by them. Next week maybe.

I'm more and more interested in what else is in the moth trap, other than moths, the identification challenge with Diptera is currently a bit beyond me but I do know a few. The new soldierfly book is getting a few runs out. Of late I've been catching a few bumblebees, they are quite confusing to identify, especially as we have local variations which don't follow the "rules".

Above three all the same animal, either Bombus pascuorum or Bombus muscorum, I'm kind of favouring B.muscorum for this one.

This one from today perhaps more likely B.pascuorum.

Our roses have been decimated by a sawfly. Good job it's new for the county.

Endelomyia aethiops.

Thanks to SS for the suggestion of a fruit sugar feeding station. It's doing well for wasps if not so well for moths.

Vespula rufa.

...and flies, Cynomya mortuorum.

At a guess some sort of Muscidae.

Lucilia sp, when I've tried to key these in the past caesar seems the most likely.

Calliphoridae species...

Underwater, we haven't been swimming again as the weather's been a bit off but a bit of rockpooling the other day and we found a couple of Sea Hares, dead chuffed.

Sea Hare.

Sea Hare hiding in the Gut Weed.

Beaded Anenome.

Distant -

Close, some sort of hydroid I'm guessing. Coralline algal species most likely.

The rain has raised the level of The Shunan and messed up the wader watching. A Quail most likely called once at home, again not substantive enough, I need to get the noc mig gear out I think. However, the first juv Hen Harrier of the year, two more Hen Harriers on the nearby moor and more than 100 Sand Martin's hunting The Shunan have been very good to see.

Unemployed, not.

So, in less than an hour now, as I write listening to the Don just after 11.00pm, my working life will end, my contract expire and I will be free(ish), if a tad less affluent. I've worked in education for local authorities for nearly all of my working life, since 1978 I think. I had a break in the early 90s when we lived in Kathmandu for a bit over a year but other than that it's been a full on slog. Not unenjoyable much of the time, interesting, challenging, but ultimately exhausting. I'm not going to witter on about it anymore now but marking the moment. Tomorrow I need to hand over my security and a hard drive and that will be that.

The new job is to have time to do this wildlife, natural history stuff better, with more time I should be more careful and accurate. Not make the sort of mistakes like this:-

Apolygus lucorum.

Unfortunately, because I didn't look carefully enough, I put this on iRecord as Closterotomus norwegicus, the Potato Capsid. Fortunately the verifier was on the ball and quickly spotted my error. A good catch as this may well be new for the county.

Closterotomus norwegicus, a real one.

C.norwegicus doesn't always have the two clear black spots on the pronotum, and the Hemiptera are an order I tend to neglect. Currently there a few light trap intruders in the fridge that I need to identify, I should get around to them shortly, and hopefully not make such errors. However, these mistakes are unavoidable at times, there's an interesting post on Not Quite Scilly discussing such things.

It's been a good few weeks with some nice discoveries. I confirmed that the 10-spot Ladybird is indeed breeding in our Wee Wood, finding two more larvae (only the second and third ladybird larvae ever found in Orkney) after the verifier was not keen on last year's identification, separation from 2-spot is nigh on impossible except by rearing through. However, 2-spot Ladybird has never been found in Orkney, and this time I found an adult as well.

Adalia deca-punctata, an adult (top) and larvae, two different instars I would expect.

 The ladybird book I have is excellent but the variation between the two larvae above would suggest that separation of larvae from Adalia duo-punctata is unreliable at best.

The Wee Wood also produced this Grey Dagger larva, so I can tick Grey Dagger now as theoretically adults are inseperable. In Scotland they should all be Grey Dagger and not Dark Dagger, however, Orkney has a record of Dark Dagger, I'm not sure of the circumstances of that, it would be interesting to find out.

Grey Dagger larva, interestingly still on the same Wych Elm leaf today, a week later.

Another denzin of Wee Wood which I was pleased with was this Sargus soldierfly. I'm reasonably confident this is Sargus bipunctatus (corrected to S. flavipes by Martin Harvey), another new one for me. The new book was a handy help with the ID.

Sargus flavipes.

Over the next year I have a target in mind of adding a new species to my life list every day, on average. That might be ambitious, I'm not sure. No harm in the aspiration anyway. It will keep me busy.

I have the intention of being more politically active as well, not in a party political way, I'm past all that now (I think). I've realised that I'm more of an anarchist than anything else, I really don't like anyone telling me what to do. In practical terms I guess some form of democratic socialism is the reality, however, campaigning and being a pain in the proverbial is an attractive way forward. Campaigning for the natural world and for rights perhaps, I'll have to figure it out.

Lastly, many thanks to AL for inviting me petreling this week. We caught 80 odd Stormies, including a Norwegian ringed control, and star of the evening a Leach's. 

From the top, Stormie about to return to the sea, Leach's and the Norwegian control.

On The Shunan the Blackwit flock has reached 21 before decling to 8 today. Four Ruff have hung around for the week, a Willow Warbler and Goldcrest were autumnal. A Merlin flew over my head in the garden and perched next door and the juv Marsh Harrier has shown a couple of times. As I came out of work during the week I'm pretty certain an unseen Bee-eater flew over calling.

Three wasps and an aphid (or two).

I was chatting to my neighbour when he mentioned wasps on his Scot's Pine, and a Wooly Aphid. My interest aroused I asked if I could take some photos. I expected the wasps to be Dolichovespula sylvestris, the Tree Wasp, as that's the one we see in our garden. On approaching the pine I quickly realised these were something else as they had orange blobs at the top of the abdomen. It took me a lot of photographs, on this windy day, and a fair bit of research to manage to identify the wasps as Vespula rufa, and not Dolichovespula norwegicus, the other one with orange/brown abdominal markings. 

Vespula rufa.

My neighbour had thought the wasps might be predating the Pine Wooly Aphid which he had found in the tree, Pineus pini. The wasps were certainly searching through the foliage.

Pineus pini "wool" in the Scot's Pine, this aphid would be new for Orkney I think.

Going through the photos I was especially pleased with this one and then delighted when I realised that the wasp was in the process of eating the aphid, well that's what it looks like to my eye.

Vespula rufa with Pineus pini a nymph of Cinara pinea (Large Pine Aphid), also found in the tree.

A bit more investigation and I found a likely candidate for Vespula vulgaris as well, bit of a tricky ID.

Vespula vulgaris, very likely, awkward to ID with certainty, they are very variable.

Interestingly, despite them being fairly frequent a few yards away in our garden there were no Tree Wasps, Dolichovespula sylvestris in the pine.

However, when I got home, Louise who had been having a bit of a clean had caught one in the house.

Dolichovespula sylvestris.

Social wasps were first recorded in Orkney in the early 1980s I believe. In the last few years I have seen only Tree Wasp in the garden, this was a wasp fiesta. I'll need to go back and see if I can find the aphid not within a wasps jaws.

I did go back and found there were other aphids present. Pineus pini should only be about 1 - 2mm long and they don't run about in the foliage. The aphids I found were larger and through the excellent photos at Influential Points I reckon they are the Large Pine Aphid Cinara pinea.

Cinara pinea, a slightly damaged one and an earlier instar in the tree.

Aphid identifications now confirmed, thanks to Dr RD.

Snorkeling.

 The snorkel mask and fins arrived yesterday so it was down to the sea. The water was uncomfortably colder than Arran for the first five minutes, but then that was forgotten with looking at everything and taking pix. I'm not the strongest swimmer or the most confident so the new fins were a bit of a boost on the falling tide. With -2 corrective lenses in the mask I could see far enough in front, and see the camera as well, handy. This was all a bit more necky than where we swam in Arran so care was required. Louise being a confident swimmer was quickly off into the distance but I stayed in the proximity of the beach. Once I got used to quickly being out of my depth and gained a bit of confidence with the new snorkel I began to concentrate on the underwater world. Nothing spectacular but these wee purple jellyfish-like creatures were all around me.

Medusa of a hydroid, not a jellyfish as such.

Identifying these doesn't really matter, I've not had a suggestion yet that such things are identifiable. Beautiful creatures. From 60mm diameter down to 20mm.

Medusa again.

Plenty of plants down there as well, my terrestrial botanical skills are flaky enough so I stuck to the basics.

Fucus serratus and a kelp which I think is Laminaria hyperborea (Cuvie) but I'm not 100% on that.

 

Sugar Kelp, Saccharina latissima.

Sea Lettuce (the bright green stuff, Ulva lactuca).

Pictures taken with the trusty Olympus Tough TG-4. I foolishly missed an underwater case for my PEN on ebay, but on reflection I'd have needed lights and a load of stuff, the TG-4 is easy to swim with as well.

Looking forward to the next time.

Back from hols two.

 The mystery moth from yesterday has turned out just to be an odd Dusky Brocade, unless anyone has any better ideas. SS had, it's a Nutmeg and I'm dead chuffed! Thank you.

Dusky Brocade I think. Nutmeg!

I had some hopes of this being Confused but the stigma are large and the subterminal line is not right, despite the leading edge of the forewing appearing to be pretty straight. Just a weird, worn and pale Dusky Brocade, but very happy to be corrected. And corrected I was, very grateful as Nutmeg is uncommon here and NFM. Always very happy to be put right with my IDs.

A wander at Northside this afternoon in perfect cetacean spotting conditions (flat sea, grey sky) eventually produced four or five distant Risso's Dolphins, one of which did a nose flip and came pretty much right out of the water. More unusual was the potter wasp Ancistrocerus scoticus which I've never previously found at this site, it was feeding on Wild Angelica.

Ancistrocerus scoticus.

I was again checking all the Ragwort for the hoverfly Cheilosia bergenstammi, no bananas. However, a nice Middle-barred Minor.

Middle-barred Minor.

There were lots of Swallows but not many other birds of note, a couple of dark phase Arctic Skuas chasing Kittiwakes being the best. This Meadow Pipit posed nicely though.

Meadow Pipit.

The main purpose of the outing was to suss out some safe snorkling spots, and I think we found some spots where we would feel safe and find some interesting things.