Dalgety Bay - April end

A nice sunny finish to the end of April - at least here! I finally got onto Platycheirus ambiguus, a hoverfly I found new to Fife last year at blackthorn and was looking for ever since I noticed the blackthorn in this year's square (after amazingly walking past it completely oblivious 100 times...). (edit: Wouldn't that be a great new for Skye fly too? Yeah, it would. Totally. If only there was blackthorn ... oh wait! Yeah males swarm above the blackthorn)

This is a species I first mistook last year for Platycheirus albimanus, but its front legs look like a female Platycheirus - not much additional ornamentation. However, it is holoptic, so back to the legs. It has a funky little coiled spring hair as you can see from this photo. I could have tidied this up a bit but it is what it is:

So far that's 89 lifers for the year out of 676, 19.5%. Amazingly there are over 600 species from last year I haven't seen, which means the combined total is something approaching 1300. Wonder where that will be at the end of the year.

Next target - 800 by end of May!

Class roundup

	Jan	Feb	Mar	Apr
Algae	6	15	26	28
Lichens	27	31	35	38
Fungi	60	83	86	92
Plants - Vascular	65	77	85	114
Plants - Bryo	46	52	55	61
Mollusc	12	17	27	28
Arachnida	7	12	17	20
Collembola	5	8	10	10
Hemiptera	4	5	7	9
Hymenoptera	3	4	4	14
Coleoptera	8	13	16	23
Diptera	15	24	38	61
Lepidoptera	4	8	14	32
Invert - Other	22	41	54	57
Vert - Birds	54	62	75	82
Vert - Other	3	5	5	7
Total	341	457	554	676
Additions		116	97	122

Numbers

672		diptera	Eupeodes luniger	A hoverfly
673	*	hymenoptera	Vespula germanica	German Wasp
674		diptera	Platycheirus ambiguus	Syrphidae
675	*	hemiptera	Orthops basalis	A bug
676	*	fungus	Coprinopsis macrocephala	A mushroom