Want some more?
Oh, alright then. I went back this morning for thirds and obtained some better images of that beast of a weevil, Lixus iridis. You can keep your Blyth's Reed Warblers...
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A big rare weevil
I was poking around a clump of Hogweed, close to home this morning, when I came across a weevil that stopped me in my tracks. I know very little about weevils, but this one was striking, being large, exhibiting an elongated cigar-shaped body and was a bright orange-brown colour. It was so obvious that I assumed that I would find it illustrated in one of the generalist insect guides back at home. I was wrong. I then went online. I checked all that I could, including Mark Gurney's fine photographic references, and felt confident enough to assign it to the genus Lixus - but as to species, I could not decide. It seemed to me on what little literature I could find that the five species of Lixus on the British list were all either exceedingly rare or very local. I needed help. I put out a tweet, together with a couple of poor images that I'd grabbed with my phone, and was delighted to have responses from Billy Dykes and Mark Gurney, confirming the identification as Lixus iridi...
Guess who's coming to dinner?
A couple of evening's ago, my wife let me know that "one of your beetles is in the kitchen". This is a great improvement on her screaming and thrashing the insect dead with a shoe, newspaper or drying up cloth. It was a weevil, but beyond that I couldn't be more specific. After a bit of internet dithering I believe it to be Otiorhynchus sulcatus (no doubt someone out there will correct me if I'm wrong). The picture above shows our kitchen visitor in all its glory, looking like a Doctor Who-themed giant insect-elephant. From the Planet Telfer, most probably. If correct, it takes the pan-species total onto 3,184. At this rate, I'll top 3,185 by the year's end...
Sod the Godwits, it's a Phyllobius pomaceus
Beddington Sewage Farm once again provided today's entertainment. The promised rain did not materialise, so therefore a diurnal wader and tern passage did not materialise either - apart from the two Barwits that flew through when I had deserted the lakeside and was off doing my botanical survey... I'm getting a reputation as an unlucky birder down at the farm. It seems that whenever I wander off something happens (Bearded Tit, White-fronted Goose and Waxwing have all appeared briefly only to depart before I have returned) - all of them are all good local birds. All was not lost though, as my assistant botanical recorder, Frankie 'Hoary Cress' Prater showed me a weevil on the nettles. I even keyed it out and feel confident in naming it Phyllobius pomaceus . That's the boy in the photograph above. The rest of the Beddington Bird Group are taking part in the annual bird race tomorrow, whereas I will be attending a barbeque in Shooter's Hill. My only decision t...