Wednesday, February 20, 2013

Beetles in Shotesham

Just three more additions to report. Ribwort Plantain was a silly missing one, but I have also been doing some beetle work. In the past, I've never persevered long enough with carabid beetles, but I am now confident I have correctly identified both Pterostichus madidus and Pt. vernalis; the former under a log in the garden and the latter under a branch on the marshy common. However, along with the latter I also found another beetle which I naively assumed was the same until I looked more closely. I'm a bit stuck with this, despite helpful advice from Mark T. It is keying out as Agonum gracilipes but this looks to be a bit of a rare so I'm assuming I've gone wrong somewhere. Mark suggested perhaps A. muelleri but I'm not convinced it's right for that either. Hmm, I shall pass it over to my BTO colleague Mike Toms who has done a lot more beetling than me, to see what he thinks. (It's probably something else entirely).

I also tried a slug tonight, and failed again. Stupid animals...

Also, a flock of Canadas and Greylags flew over tonight, but just outside the square boundary. In fact, they flew over a little copse where I saw Muntjac at the weekend, also just outside the border!

204 the score for the year now. Interestingly, no less than 35 of these have been lifers for me, which I think pushes me up to 2,693.

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