Caerau Nature & the rest of the world: Lletty Brongu

Yesterday was a tale of 2 halves. I went out in the morning and it was cloudy damp and cold (8c). I walked around Caerau and hardly saw anything, most plants have now died back. The only plants left now are Devil's Bit Scabious and patches of Japanese Knotweed. Insects were absent except for a knotgrass caterpillar and the only birds about were 20+ Meadow Pipit and 2 Bullfinch. I eventually gave up at noon and returned home. After about an hour the weather changed completely, bright sunshine the wind changed direction to westerly and the temperatures rose to 13c. So at 2 o'clock I went down Lletty Brongu sewage works to check out some sun traps. This turned out to be the right thing to do and I recorded 16 species of hoverfly feeding on Japanese Knotweed and some early blooming Ivy. Highlights included Eupeodes latifasciatus, Cheilosia scutellata, a late Myathropa florea and surprisingly 4 Xylota segnis. The commonest flies were Eristalis pertinax (25) and Episyrphus balteatus (10). There were also good numbers of Harlequin and 7-spot Ladybird present. Also I saw 2 Ivy Bee feeding on the knotweed, which was unusual considering the fact that blooming Ivy was only yards away. Also I had 2 Field vole under some corrugated iron sheeting, according to my records this is the first time I've recorded them in the valley, but more likely I haven't made a note of my recordings in the past.

As a side show I've been looking into Fly leaf-mines. There are about 400 species of fly leaf-miners and they use virtually every plant going and specialise mainly on single plants. The mines are quite different looking to moth leaf mines so are easily told apart plus the fact that many of the flies leaf mine plants which moths do not. I have been taking a few photographs a day and putting them on Irecord for confirmation. So I'm slowly building up a list as my knowledge of the subject grows.

Myathropa florea - my latest date for the year

male Eupeodes can't generally be done (other than corollae and lapponicus) and this one when captured as a specimen revealed it may be something special. Update when my specimens are assessed at the end of the year by Roger Morris of the Hoverfly Recording Scheme.