Patch 2016 - Things that fly that aren't birds.

I tried to expand my interests into all things flying, so Bees, Butterflies, and Odonata (Moths I will keep for another year). It didn’t really work this year.

I had hoped to expand on my single cuckoo bee of 2015, but no such luck. And telling apart the four black/yellow/white species didn’t really work out well. I had fun with Red-Tailed and Tree Bumblebees but next year I need to make a proper effort.

One of those black/yellow/white ones

I saw a few dragonflies – Banded Demoiselle were everywhere, Common Blue, Azure, and Blue-tailed Damselfly on the river, Common Darter, Brown Hawker and Emperor Dragonfly, but White-legged Damselfly and Willow Emerald Dragonfly were seen on the Stort, but not by me.  So some work to be done on this group of insects.

male Azure Damselfly

 Butterflies went slightly better. The stand-out ones for me being Marbled White in the field below Nursery Wood in late June, and getting some Essex Skippers later in the year. No sign of any hairstreaks in Pishiobury Park, or a repeat of the large orange floaty thing there from last year either.

Essex Skipper I believe - black-tipped antennae.

In previous years I've seen Pipistrelle and Noctule Bats in the park. I didn't try particularly hard for b at this year, but still didn't see either. Not good news for our local Bat population ...

So for 2017, some more attention to those cuckoo bees and nailing the commoner ones. And maybe some more attention to those odonata.