The first new species of 2026

 To reach my aim of 100 species I am clearly going to have to see quite a few that will be new for me. Today I achieved the first of these, though I have to say I didn't notice at the time.


Sweeping and searching along a Blackthorn hedge at Weston Moor I couldn't decide on the species for an apparent Eristalis hovering in front of me. Thinking that I must still be very poor at these I took it home and was delighted when I discovered that it was a Greater Spring Blacklet (Cheilosia grossa).

I used a bit of CO2 to slow it down, popped it into my lightbox and fired of a few photos as it woke up.



Cheilosia grossa female

I had noticed what looked like Spear Thistle near the hedge so this was presumably the source  of this individual

Back in the garden I was surprised to see a Tiger Marsh hoverfly as it seemed too early but then noticed that a second person had reported one today on the UK hoverflies Facebook group.



I am very aware that this will probably be the species that I see most in the year but its good to see my first. 


It also gave me the opportunity of learning again how to tell males from females as the eyes are separate in both. In males, like this, the eyes start parallel at the rear then diverge towards the antennae.


Warm weather this week at least gives me the chance of reaching 10 species before the month is out though again, every Platycheirus I saw today was albimanus. Someone in Bristol saw a large bumblebee mimic yesterday and I was sorely tempted to head for the site and try and twitch it as if it was a vagrant bird........  but that way lies madness  !

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Cape Verde 2 : six days on Santa Antao

Image
 Our first two big bonuses were that we managed to agree an extension on the villa hire and that a company based at the dock had a car for hire for the whole period. The villa was a pig to find as the instructions got lost in the ether until we actually arrived. Once we did find it it was a great base for us. The sea views were a bit too distant for birds though and despite a lot of staring out I did not see a cetacean all stay. Our villa was in the N E corner between Ribiera Grande and Sinagoga. It was a great base with a bedroom each and 5 bathrooms along with a large kitchen and lounge. The pool was frankly only used by Jim and the two Jacuzzis were wasted on us.  For future reference we found the villa on VRBO hosted by Lolo Fildes and described as a luxury villa. I would not hesitate to recommend it. Birds. First and foremost our plan was to follow up on Peter Stronach's sightings of Black-capped Petrels. T do this the team scoped out likely sites for seawatches while I n...
Read more

Cape Verde 1 : in search of rare petrels and new insects

Image
 A year ago an intrepid Scottish birder called Peter Stronach discovered a likely breeding colony of Black-capped Petrels on the island of Santa Antao in the Cape Verde islands. Having had an interest in seabirds since university, this seemed a great opportunity to follow up his observations. Accordingly 4 of us set off from Bristol airport on Monday Jan 29th 2024 to try and follow in his footsteps. Santa Antao is not straightforward to reach so we first flew to Lisbon and overnighted in a Holiday Inn Express.  The next mornig we caught a TAP flight to Sao Vicente where we planned to explore and seawatch for a few days while working out if we could get ferries to other islands and watch from them. While this sort of planning seems simple in the world of the internet, it doesn't work like that in the cape verdes. Our first contact, however was superb meeting us at the airport and handing over our hire car at his office. No paperwork seemed to be involved and we simply set off f...
Read more
Image
 After my success with the Duke of Burgundy butterfly I was inspired to go for another species I have not seen for years. This was the Small Blue and I chose Stoke Camp. Again, like the Common Clubtail dragonfly I only saw one individual but this was more down to me abandoning it early when my camera battery gave out and my spare appeared to be empty so all my own fault. One is still so much better than none though and I was happy with my initial shots I also got an underside view  There were not many butterflies on the wing despite a temperature of 20 degrees but I did get close to this Small Heath and I always enjoy seeing Brown Argus Otherwise a Painted Lady was a surprise migrant and the first Meadow Browns I have seen this year barrelled past in the stiff breeze. These will be species I suspect that I will see many times later in the year
Read more