Bald Hill re-visited - 21st Aug

 

Frog Orchid
19 counted this morning

Chiltern Gentian
good numbers of these around the site

Stripe-winged Grasshopper (male)

Frog Orchid

Chiltern Gentian

Silver-spotted Skipper

BBOWT Warburg, Bix Bottom.

 Carrying on from the previous report from Bald Hill by Peter Law. Two Gentians are now showing

at Warburg Reserve. The Autumn Gentian and the much rarer 

Chiltern Gentian (The County flower of Buckinghamshire). 

Fortunately they presently grow at opposite ends of a large meadow as they can hybridize. 

At the moment we only have two Chiltern Gentians but this will grow over the next weeks.

There is an excellent piece on the BBOWT site on how to tell the difference between these two 

wonderful

Chiltern Gentian

Autumn Gentian.

wildflowers.

Bald Hill - 17th Aug

Things to see while dipping Frog Orchids

Seek ID'd the Gentians variously as Autumn and Field, but on reading things up the the paler Field is unlikely in either the habitat or our area, and only has four petals per flower. SSS is flying in good numbers despite last year's drought.

Autumn Gentian

Silver-spotted Skipper

Chiltern Gentian

Silver-spotted Skipper

Otmoor 9th August

Female Brown Hairstreak

Roesel's Bush Cricket

Otmoor Roman Road - 9th Aug

Brown Hairstreak (male)

Southern Hawker

Roesel's Bush-cricket

Hairy Shieldbug

Watlington Hill - 1st August 2023.

The rare Silver Spotted Skipper recently emerged.
Quite late this year.

Silver Spotted Skipper

Common Blue - Two's company three's a crowd.

Sydlings Copse - 3rd Aug

Parasols
Mushroom management by the reserve ponies - in the dark and certainly well fed!

Beefsteak Polypore

Spotted Longhorn

 

Brassy Longhorn moth - Brightwell-cum-Sotwell

For the next few weeks, look out for the Brassy Long-horn (Nemophora metallica) a micromoth with spectacularly long antennae in the males. Females lay their eggs among the flowers of Scabious. See Sue Taylor's blog about the moth and it's hymenopteran parisitoid (Stilbops ruficornis).

Nemophora metallica (male)

Whitecross Green Wood - hoverfly sp. - 13 July

This hoverfly was seen while looking for Southern Migrant Hawkers at Whitecross Green Wood. Many thanks to John Bloomfield who advises that "it is probably a male (eyes meet at the top of the head) of the genus Syrphus. If it is, then identifying males to species level is not possible without microscopic examination. Another possibility is the related Epistrope genus, but again many of these can only be separated to species level by microscopic examination (eg of hair colour on scutellum)"

Stephen Burch

Hoverfly probably of genus Syrohus. © Stephen Burch

Flies of Little Wittenham

 A selection of flies from Little Wittenham and surrounds, 24th June 2023

Slender Striped Robberfly (Leptogaster cylindrica)

Sphaerophoria scripta

Chrysotoxum verralli (male)

Eristalis pertinax (male)

Banded General (Stratiomys potamida)