Intruders

 Sunday, October 25

Wintertime is being celebrated by a lovely sunny day. The clocks went back last night. Please, please can we stay the same all year round. The lore is that the change is for Scotland's benefit. Scotland can have their own time zone - the US manages with four different time zones, even with Trump at the helm. Queensland stays the same year round, whilst neighbouring New South Wales change theirs. That plays havoc with TV shows when winners are announced as NSW gets it first. I can't quite work that out, but it happened whilst we were there last time. Upside down!

I had my first 2020 view of a Hummingbird Hawkmoth in the garden on Friday. I saw one at Beeston in July. Pam's seen several previously, they were fleeting visits, too quick for me. This one stayed several minutes, prospecting the flowers in the wall border near the house. Mainly interested in the alpine Daphne flowers.  Adrian saw it too.

Another, different, Ichneumon wasp in yesterday's trap. They do not have pleasant habits but I love to look at them.

The ichneumon wasp is a parasitoid: Its parasitic larvae feed on or inside another insect host species until it dies. (By definition, parasitoids kill their hosts when advancing from the parasitic to the free-living portions of their life cycles, whereas true parasites typically thrive in or on their hosts without directly killing them.) Because many of the hosts of the ichneumon larvae are insect pests of both agricultural and forest crops, ichneumons can be effective biological control agents and provide an economic and environmental benefit to humans.

 

So, they're not all bad. I believe that this one is Pimpla Rufipes, its orange legs and black body are diagnostic. Probably a female from the length of its ovipositor.

This very attractive beetle, it had us in raptures over its brilliant and glittering colours in the sun, is also a pest. Number 4 on the RHS list of harmful garden insects.  A Rosemary Beetle.

 

We've never seen one before, and Pam is very observant of living creatures. I didn't find a single insect when I was planting out alpine plants this afternoon. The raised bed is usually very active as there are always flowers out.