Semaphore flies and home turf

I am told that flies are a slippery slope but am finding myself taking more and more notice of them to the extent that I am feeling a book purchase coming on. It was nice to have time to spend back on the patch this week after all the excitement and trips of the past couple of weeks and whilst walking across the levels on Sunday I noticed a lot of these distinctive flies around the margins of the ditches "dancing" around like mini dervishes. A bit of internet searching helped me identify them as Poecilobothrus nobilitatus which was recently given the splendid english name of Semaphore Fly (presumably due to the white wing tips on the males looking like semaphore flags while the males display to the females).

Birding this week has been much more laid back. A work trip to Swindon on Monday produced 4 of the obligatory Red Kites along the M4 corridor as well as Buzzards, and a very quick stop at Old Lodge in the evening (to break up the drive) saw Brilliant Emerald performing well and a male Redstart. Saturday and Sunday saw me back on the levels and happily wading in to the residents, Stock Dove, Lesser Whitethroat, Buzzard, Yellow Wagtail, & Little Egret were all on show and for a change from recent history it appears to have been a good year for breeding birds so far with many "birds of the year" in evidence.
Moving on to the lepids. Aside from the Eyed Hawkmoth trapped on the night of the 25th there have been more new additions to both the year list and garden list over the past few days. Highlights as follow:
23rd June: 58 macro's of 18 species including Barred Straw, Common Wainscot, Heart & Club, July Highflyer, Lime Hawkmoth, Small Elephant Hawkmoth, & Swallow-tailed Moth all new for the year. 25
micro's of 10 species including Acentria ephemerella (Water Veneer), Endotricha flammealis, Limnaecia phragnitella, Lozotaenia forsterana, Paraswammerdamia nebulella, & Udea olivalis all of which were new for me (well in the case of E. flammealis at least, I had seen many before without further investigating - these are very distinctive with an upright stance making them look like they are resting on their wings which have been folded at a forty-five degree angle)

25th June: 37 macro's of 9 species including new for the year Brown-tail and the afore-mentioned Eyed Hawkmoth. 5 micro's of 3 species.

27th June: 49 macro's of 10 species including Clouded Border and Broad-bordered Yellow Underwing new for the year. Dark Arches became the second moth to break the hundred barrier for the year and heads to the top of the list in terms of number of records for the year - no surprises there! 10 micro's of 5 species including a striking male Archips podana (Large Fruit-tree Tortrix) which was yet another new one for me.

29th June: 30 macro's of 13 species including Blue-bordered Carpet, a new moth both for the garden and for me, and Common/Lesser Common Rustic (if you don't know no dissecting please, hence on these pages you will typically find minor spp etc - don't kill it and rip it up to satisfy your curiosity) which was new for the year. 11 micro's of 3 species. Lastly on the lepidoptera front a walk at Birling Gap on Saturday morning produced my first Marbled White and Dark Green Fritillary of the year. Comma was seen on Down Level on Sunday along with many Small Tortoiseshell.

Finally but by no means least, to the Dragons on the levels on Sunday. In the warm and cloudy conditions I managed to see Brown Hawker, Azure Blue damselfly, Variable damselfly, Blue-tailed damselfly, Black-tailed Skimmer, and 2 Emerald damselfly (both males) of which the image below is of a teneral (recently emerged) individual. 

Peace, compassion, understanding.