Tag Archives: Hogweed

Natural History

Insects (and Flowers) of Chalk Grassland at Aston Rowant

6-Spot Burnet Moth side view with proboscis nectaring on Marjoram, antennae iridescent blue. Extremely flighty on a really hot day!
6-Spot Burnet Moth on Marjoram, Red on Iridescent Green (like the related Forester Moth, which flies here earlier in the year)
6-Spot Burnet Moth on Marjoram, same insect, looking Red on Black. The brilliant conspicuous coloration is evidently aposematic, more or less honestly warning that the insects are toxic, containing cyanogenic glucosides. A recent article finds, however, that the most toxic burnet moths are not more aposematic, i.e. there is no quantitative relationship. (But wouldn’t the less toxic moths evolve to look like the most toxic ones, as it’s safer…)
Moulting Grasshopper
Hoverfly on St John’s Wort
A magnificently large Parasitic Wasp on Hogweed
Soldier Beetle on Hogweed
Pyrausta nigrata: a beautiful chocolate-brown Micro Moth of downland with a wavy wing bar, among the wild Thyme (that’s how small it is)
Common Blue butterfly on Self-Heal
Marbled White on Scabious
Dark Green Fritillary (with quaking-grass above). Not only rare, but very flighty! I was happy to get this long shot through the grass.

There were also Small Whites, Meadow Browns, Gatekeepers, Small Skippers, and possibly Chalkhill Blues about.

A magnificently short, gnarly Beech getting a good toe-hold on the Chalk
Well this probably is a Chiltern Gentian, the flowers are large, and showier than the Autumn Gentian; pinker than the camera has made it look, too

Natural History

Summer Colours at Gunnersbury Triangle

Thick-kneed flower beetle (metallic iridescent green and gold) on Poppy (red, pink, orange, there are plenty of colours in there!, with violet stigmas)
Crab Spider scarily camouflaged on Hogweed: whitish-green and bright red, curiously
Caterpillar of Angle Shades moth, magnificent in bright green and turquoise. Its food plants include Bramble, Hazel, Hops, Birch, and Oak, all of which are found here.
Natural History

Fine Crop of Insects Pollinating Hogweed at Gunnersbury Triangle

Macrophya (Symphyta) mating on Hogweed
Macrophya (Symphyta) mating on Hogweed: one of two mating pairs, and many individuals around in the warm sunshine this afternoon. Mating lasts for less than a minute, so the photographer has to be lucky and quick

Small bee pollinating Hogweed
Small bee pollinating Hogweed (flying between flowers)

Tiny speckled beetle pollinating Hogweed
Tiny speckled beetle pollinating Hogweed

Rose Chafer on Hogweed
Rose Chafer on Hogweed

Oedemera nobilis on Hogweed
Oedemera nobilis on Hogweed

Strangalia maculata longhorn beetle on Hogweed
Strangalia maculata longhorn beetle on Hogweed

Marvellously slender long-tailed Ichneumon
Marvellously slender long-tailed Ichneumon, on Hogweed of course (just look at that ovipositor!)

OK, and to end, one insect NOT on Hogweed, the Small China-Mark Moth, on a Reed. It and many others of its species were fluttering about the pond, where they mate and lay eggs in waterside vegetation. I was really pleased to get the camera so close to this attractive little insect.

Small China-Mark Moth
Small China-Mark Moth