Seymour Birdies Diary: A Day with the Macro at Lakenheath

16th July 2019

Going to Lakenheath at this time of year can be a bit risky. You could get lucky and be inundated with Bearded Tits, Marsh Harriers, Bitterns and Hobbys............or not. So therefore best to have a "back-stop" and take the macro lens, because one thing you can be sure of is plenty of wild flowers and insects. First up was that beautiful aquatic plant Purple Loosestrife which brightens up any waterside vegetation

Similar in structure but with pale lilac flowers instead of purple was another damp-loving flower Marsh Woundwort, a cousin of the common hedgerow plant Hedge Woundwort which has red flowers.

But the best find of all was a few plants of the scarce Large-flowered Hemp-nettle. I don't know its status in Suffolk, but it is only present in one small site at Lakenheath, and has never been common in Hertfordshire and has not been recorded there since 1987.

Many of these plants were home to the numerous Brown-lipped Snail.

Butterflies were poorly represented and the only one that settled for a shot was this Skipper. It never opened its wings but its size and feint markings showing through the wing would suggest Large Skipper, although I am prepared to stand corrected.

Dragonflies were a little more numerous and there were plenty of male Black-tailed Skimmers sunning themselves on the warm paths. Females tend to stay in the vegetation.

On the algae-covered ponds there were plenty of Small Red-eyed Damselflies mating. This is a huge success story as they didn't arrive in the UK until 1999.

This male was holding the female totally submerged.

Also on the pond were a number of Four-spotted Chasers.

But by far the most numerous dragonflies on site were Ruddy Darters. Interestingly, no Common Darters were seen at all. Both sexes of Ruddy Darter have jet black legs with the male having a crimson abdomen and the female straw-coloured.

And for the finale on to Hogweed City, home to the vast majority of the insects on site. The most numerous insect by far was the Soldier Beetle with up to 20 per flower head, and with their antics shown here we can think ourselves lucky that we are not knee-deep in the little critters.

The next commonest insect was the small hoverfly Episyrphus balteatus, the Marmalade Fly. These are very common and widespread.

On a much larger scale was this female Eristalis pertinax, the Tapered Dronefly. It was using its large proboscis to extract pollen.

A rather more dainty hoverfly was this male Sphaerophoria scripta, the Long Hoverfly, with its abdomen longer than its wings. Quite a striking hoverfly, especially when nectaring on Purple Loosestrife.

And last but by no means least was this fourth species of hoverfly Syrphus ribesii, the Common Banded Hoverfly. This hoverfly was abundant on the Hogweed.