September sunshine...

I don't need to tell any of you on Islay what a brilliant day it was on Sunday, the island was looking glorious in the late September sunshine. A great day for raptor spotting - out and about around Loch Gorm and Gruinart looking for the newly arrived Barnacle Geese I saw 3 Peregrine Falcons, 4 Buzzards, 2 Hen Harriers and a Sparrowhawk.

The white goose that Ian mentions on the mighty Islay Birds blog as being on the wee loch next to Loch Gorm is pictured below, I don't know if it's some kind of hybrid or an albino, but either way I don't recognise it! It seemed to be a fair bit larger than the Greylags it was swimming around with.

A quiet day for caterpillars (isn't every day?) though I did see what I think is a fully grown Fox Moth caterpillar crossing the road at no great speed near Saligo, kindly giving a grub/larvae of some description a lift...

Scottish Invertebrate Habitat Management Advice Documents

The first four Scottish Invertebrate Habitat Management Advice Documents have been published online, and are a major step towards implementing the Strategy for Scottish Invertebrate Conservation. The first four cover Cereal Field Margins, Coastal Vegetated Shingle, Blanket Bogs and Lowland Raised Bogs.

http://www.buglife.org.uk/News/Scottish+Invertebrate+Habitat+Management+Advice+Published

The first four advice documents can be downloaded here:

http://www.buglife.org.uk/conservation/Scotland/Habitat+Management+Advice.htm

And you can download the Strategy for Scottish Invertebrate Conservation here:

http://www.buglife.org.uk/Resources/Buglife/Documents/PDF/ScottishStrategy.pdf

The Scottish Invertebrate Habitat Management Advice Documents provide management advice for landowners and managers, as well as details of agricultural grants and subsidies that may be available to help support this work, such as SRDP.

Additional Scottish Invertebrate Habitat Management Advice Documents will be published online as they are completed.

Bug Hunt at Port Mor

We had an excellent turnout at Port Mor today - with around four families containing an awful lot of bug hunters.  Happily there were lots of bugs to hunt, including this very friendly snail, which I guess is not really a bug but it came along for the ride anyway.

Fiona gave us a talk on how to be the right colour to be hard to find if you are a bug, and also how to catch bugs using nets and swishing them through the grass.  When we caught something we put it into bug boxes which had built-in magnifying glasses so that we could see them better.  Then we looked them up in a book to try and identify them.  When we had finished with them we let them all go. 

Fiona has a website, which is very properly called Green Bug Productions which sells her Wildlife Discovery Packs
http://www.green-bug-productions.co.uk/

Ruby-tailed wasp (Chrysis ignita) and Common Earwig (Forficula auricularia)

This is a very beautiful Ruby-tailed wasp that really does have a metallic green head and thorax with a metallic red abdomen - all of which flash in the sunshine.  Although the adults eat pollen and nectar, they lay their eggs on the larvae of the burrow-dwelling Red mason bee - which then eat their hosts alive.  Not very nice

Earwigs are, extremely buggy bugs - this is a view of the underside, or ventral surface as it is called, of one.  Earwigs are very good mothers - not only do they look after their eggs once they have laid them, they look after the baby earwigs once they have hatched - looking like tiny versions of the adults.  Earwigs eat pretty much everything - they are omnivorous, which probably explains why you can find them pretty much everywhere!!

These were just some of the great creatures we caught during the Bug hunt today

Emperor and Cinnabar moth caterpillars

The black and yellow banded Cinnabar moth (Callimorpha jacobaeae) caterpillars were feeding on Ragwort.  It was generally agreed that it was good that Ragwort has some good uses - like feeding very hungry caterpillars - because it is not very good for horses if they eat it.

This is a lovely Emperor Moth caterpillar (Saturnia pavonia) also found on the bug hunt.  It was eating bramble leaves.

It is, as you can see, a very large caterpillar indeed.  When he (or she) was first picked up he squirted some stuff at us, and then rolled into a ball and refused to come out again.  We think the squirting must have been some sort of defense mechanism to deter predators.  It certainly deterred some young bug-hunters!!

Golden-ringed Dragonfly ovipositing

Golden-ringed Dragonfly ovipossiting
Originally uploaded by Sgeir Mhor

We watched this Golden ringed Dragonfly ovipositing on Jura on the 30th June. It was something I'd never seen before so it was very exciting and I thought it would be something other people would be interested in seeing.

Becky

(PS -sorry about the extra 's' in 'ovipositing' opposite. Since I learnt the correct spelling I can't seem to edit it)

Insects on Islay

Yesterday we scoured Islay's east coast for the Purple Hairstreak Butterfly - without success, but look what we found instead!

The top picture is the female Common Hawker (Aeshna juncea), a species which is widespread and common throughout Britain. Much more exciting was the Longhorn Beetle that Elaine found. It was well over an inch long with impressive antennae that are longer than its entire body length in males and equal to its body length in females. Its scientific name is Aromia moschata because it emits a distinctive smell (didn't ask Tim to check this after he'd held it!) and its English name is simply Musk Beetle - a bit of a plain name for such a beautiful creature if you ask me!

The Common Hawker was seen at Claggain Bay and the Musk Beetle at Ardilistry.

Becky

Insects on Jura

The walk to Market Loch, near Craighouse on Jura in July provides ample opportunity to look for dragonflies, butterflies and moths. The top picture is of a male Keeled Skimmer - a species which, in Scotland is restricted to the west coast, particularly Argyll, although there is only one record for Islay from 1961 (probably an under-recorded species). This beautiful dragonfly perches and then often depresses and twists its wings forward so that they lie at nearly a 90 degree angle to its body.

The bottom picture is a micro moth - Pyrausta purpuralis which is an attractive purple and gold in colour.

Becky

Magpie Moth (Abraxas grossulariata)

Common Blue (Polyommatus icarus)

This was a really bright, and most obliging, male Common Blue butterfly up on the hills above Sanaigmore. There is no colour enhancement of that shot at all - he really was that bright....