Nature Notes from Argyll
(and occasionally other places)

Sun 30 May 2010 Lurignich, Appin.  Mostly sunny.

Not often an Orange Tip stands still to be photographed, let alone a female.  You can just make out the patterned wing underside.  Groups of the micro-moth Micropterix calthella are often seen feeding on buttercup pollen at this time of year.
 

The Pine Looper moth is unusual in resting with its wings closed, though here I've caught it with them half open.  The moth with bird-dropping camouflage in the RH pic is one of three species in the Epiblema cirsiana group, but I can't tell which.  It flew off after just one photo.
 

The Two-banded Longhorn Beetle on a Horse Chestnut leaf.  I thought the creature on the right was also a kind of Longhorn Beetle, because of its size and patterning, but in fact it's a weevil.  At 12.5 mm long, excluding the rostrum, it's quite a giant by weevil standards.  I haven't been able to identify it yet.
 

The rove beetle Staphylinus erythropterus (thanks to Murdo Macdonald for the ID) and the Green Tiger Beetle were running about on the forestry track.
 

The hoverfly Sericomyia lappona basking on a rock, and the centipede Lithobius variegatus exposed by turning over a log.

 

All photos and other content copyright © Carl Farmer