Friday 5 June 2009

Lesser stag beetle

It's been a good week for insects at Frog End. A few days ago we had our first blue damselfly of the year. I suspect it was a common blue damselfly, but have yet to check - a lot of blue damselflies look very alike.

Yesterday I found a dragonfly exuviae. Unfortunately it fell in the pond in my attempts to access it, but I still managed to get some photos. I assume it's a common darter exuviae because it's very small, although it could be a broad-bodied chaser (though I've not seen them breed at our pond).



Today I found this female lesser stag beetle in a pile of fence panel slats. I've now thrown them away, but have moved the stag beetle to a lovely big log near the pond so I'm sure she'll be just as happy.



If you do see a stag beetle you can report your sighting via the great stag hunt.

1 comment:

Scriptor Senex said...

Glad to know the beetles are still around and didn't become camera shy after all my chasing last year. One of my fears about gardening is disturbing the native wildlife and making it move away (or die out). Your garden is such a wildlife haven that all your hard work has the opposite effect and makes it even more attractive to the native species. If everyone did as you do instead of devoting their space to swimming pools and paving stones the world would be a better place!