Summer is my favourite time of year, and there is one main reason for that – I love insects, and in summer you find them everywhere! Over the last few months I’ve been conducting a variety of surveys around the reserve to monitor our insect populations.
Six-spot Burnet Moth by Calum Maclure
Pollination is an extremely crucial role in our ecosystem, so I decided to survey the pollinators found around the reserve, building upon protocols created by the 2016 reserve intern. This mostly involves catching and identifying any insects found around flowering plants to create a species list for the reserve. Bees and flies are the most common to find, with butterflies, beetles, wasps and sawflies also numerous.
Common Blue by Calum Maclure
Ringlet by Calum Maclure
Yellow-sided Clover Sawfly by Calum Maclure
I’ve been putting the moth trap out pretty regularly, and the recent warm, calm weather has meant that I often have several hundred moths to sort through in the morning! There are definitely worse problems to have – at least we know there are still plenty of moths around.
Swallow-tailed Moth by Calum Maclure
Buff-tip by Calum Maclure
The most numerous species at the moment is the Large Yellow Underwing, followed by the Dark Arches and Garden Tiger.
Garden Tiger by Calum Maclure
Non-lepidopteran visitors to the light trap can also be found, with a few different species of dung and carrion beetles also attracted to light, as well as crane flies and parasitic ichneumonid wasps, which lay their eggs in moth caterpillars.
Banded Sexton Beetle by Calum Maclure
I was delighted to spot some leafcutter bees in the wildlife garden, flying around carrying bits of leaves. This is the first time they have been recorded at Strathbeg, which is a good sign their population is spreading further north to places they previously were not found. The reason these bees need leaves is to create a place for their babies to grow up safely. The leaf pieces are rolled up into a tube, which is placed in a hole such as the ones in our bee hotels.
Leafcutter bee by Calum Maclure
The female bee then lays an egg in the leaf tube and fills it with pollen, which the larva will use as a protein-rich food store while it grows after hatching. When it has grown into an adult, the young bee will chew through the end of the tube and begin its adult life.
Munched leaves by Calum Maclure
Dragonflies and damselflies have appeared en masse over the last month or so, and although our pond is running low there are still plenty around, especially in the wildflower meadows. These are among my personal favourite insects; dragonflies are statistically the deadliest predators in the world, with a 95% hunting success rate.
Common Darter by Calum Maclure
There are lots of grasshoppers in the grass around the dunes which have an amazing variability in their colours. They can be any combination of brown, green, and rarely bright pink. The pink colouration is caused by a rare gene which is actually disadvantageous as it makes it easier for predators to spot them.
Common Green Grasshopper by Calum Maclure
Empis tesselata by Calum Maclure
This species of dance fly, also known as a Hanging Fly, exhibits a fascinating behaviour in which the male must present the female with a “gift” – in this case an unfortunate hoverfly – in order for her to allow him to mate with her. If the male has no gift, the female will refuse his advances.
Calum Maclure
Reserves Intern