This is the time of the year when things start to slow down on the hoverfly front, decreasing slowly until the end of season roughly the second week of October. There are three very important feeding plants around this time of year and they are Devilsbit Scabious, Goldenrod and Water Mint. Devilsbit Scabious is only now starting to bloom with about 40% in flower, so the best is yet to come. Goldenrod has had a poor year with only a few plants blooming at the usual sites and only holding one Star-wort moth caterpillar. Water Mint however is having a good year and has expanded from the old railway line brook all along the fence line on the opposite side of the track. Brooklime is also partly in bloom along the brook, not a common plant in the valley. There are also small patches of Tansy, Upright Hedge Parsley and a single Wild Parsnip umbellifer to attract hoverflies at Spelter.
On my walk I recorded 23 species of hoverfly, the star being a male Volucella zonaria near the white house in Newtown. A Melangyna umbellatarum was seen egg laying on Hogweed flowerheads and 6 Volucella pellucens was a good count. Commonest species by far today was Eristalis tenax numbering 213.
Other insects included half a dozen Painted Lady and Small Copper, a female Stictoleptura rubra longhorn beetle and a Physocephela rufipes conopid fly. Nothing much on the bird front though.
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