Woodston Ponds LNR

Although the Pasque Flowers at Barnack yesterday were lovely there was in fact little else of interest and the only insects were a couple of butterflies and the odd Bombus lapidarius. What a contrast then today at the Wildlife Trust's reserve near the centre of Peterborough. The nettle and comfrey patches of the river flood area along the Nene were teeming with insects, especially hoverflies. There were also plenty of Blackcaps singing and a couple of Sparrowhawks calling and displaying overhead.

There must have been at least five or six species of hoverfly present in one spot, among them Syrphus sp., a Melanostoma type and probably other small species as well as the ones shown here (which I hope are correctly udentified).

Epistrophe eligans (female)


Helophilus pendulus (female)


There were plenty of butterflies about including my first Green-veined Whites and Speckled Woods (Pararge aegeria) of the year, Small Tortoiseshells (Aglais urticae) and Peacock (Inachis io).

Green-veined White (Pieris napi)


This Ladybird gave me a bit of an ID headach, not helped by it trying to burrow itself as far as possible into the crown of a stinging nettle. It was very small so I think it is probably the 16-spot.

14-spot Ladybird (Propylea quatordecimpunctata) - thanks to Alan and Stuart for help with the ID.


This green weevil caught my eye but unfortunately it it not easy to assign these to species level.

Green Weevil (Phyllobius sp.)?


There were again plenty of Nursery Web Spiders making a fine living out of the smaller insects blundering about the place.

Nursery Web Spider (Pisaura mirabilis)


And just to prove I am not totally fixated on insects, here is the first Cuckoo Flower I have noticed this year.

Cuckoo Flower or Lady's Smock (Cardamine pratensis)


Nikon CP995