Species Surveys 2010

I've decided to survey the insects present in the garden over the next few days / weeks (depending on the weather and how busy I am). Of course I won't manage to survey everything and I suspect that there are many families that I simply won't get round to, but I shall try to at least begin species lists for the bees, wasps and flies, and to add to the very short lists I currently have for beetles, bugs, moths and hoverflies.

I took a lot of photos today and it's going to take a long time to identify most of the species - particularly as I don't know any bee species, but I can immediately add these two species to the lists for Frog End:

Two-spot ladybird:

Meadow brown butterfly:

There were two really exciting finds of the day:

1) Two southern hawker larvae in the pond:

Southern hawkers have oviposited in the pond both last summer and the summer before, but I'd never previously managed to find any larvae in the pond.

2) This wonderful rove beetle. At least I think it's a rove beetle. It was just sitting there on a buddleia leaf. I've never seen anything like it in the garden before - it was huge!