Mark Lawlor's Nature Blog

Last week of July and it was away to East Yorkshire with the oldest two kids to visit the family. Any time leaving the island you immediately come across species that you haven’t seen for ages, especially if you rarely go anywhere, like me. At least five Red Kites were seen driving from Yeadon Airport to Driffield.

The first thing I saw the next morning was a new species of macro moth just perched on my parents’ garage wall - a Small Ranunculus. I was surprised, first that I recognised it, but also that it had spread so far north. I thought it was restricted to SE England but obviously not. A smart individual, with a dark, scalloped band across the wing and with a bright orange garnish sprinkled on the top.

In the evening of the first full day (25th July) I went for a quick visit to Skerne Wetlands which is the closest nature reserve to Driffield. I only discovered this spot last time I was here and I really love it. The main reason is that I’ve hardly seen anyone there at all. It is so quiet, you can actually have some proper peace. It is especially noticeable because, in Guernsey, there are people literally everywhere. You can’t walk anywhere without passing people every few minutes and there’s very little alone time. I didn’t expect much birds at this time of year but I had brought my net and was looking for a few interesting insects. The best thing I saw on this first visit were quite a lot of Banded Demoiselles along the riverside. This was a species that I had not seen for years and the last time was in Germany. We do not get any demoiselles in Guernsey so it was terrific to watch the males bounce along the waterside vegetation.

Banded Demoiselle - Skerne Wetlands, 25 Jul 24

Another insect that was very much in evidence was a small, brown beetle that had totally been devouring the willows of the reserve. Every leaf was eaten away by the larvae and now there was literally thousands and thousands of them all along the path. A little research proved these to be “Brown Willow Beetles” (imaginative!) also known as Galerucella lineola. In among them were the odd few “Blue Willow Beetle” or Phratora vulgatissima. Other things seen this evening were some Azure Damselflies, a few “friendly” Twin-spotted Deerflies and a Dingy Footman.

Brown (*Galerucella lineola)* & Blue (*Phratora vulgatissima)* Willow Beetles - Skerne wetlands, 25 Jul 24

Brown Willow Beetles (*Galerucella lineola)* - Skerne wetlands, 25 Jul 24

I went down again the next day and it was a hot and sunny day with lots of insects out, which was good but now the deerflies had been joined by numerous cleg flies to try and feast upon me. This time I walked past the reserve and followed the path north along the River Hull until I got to another bridge. It was even more peaceful up here and I came face to face with a superb Roe Deer. The water was so clear below the bridge and the Brown Trout were in the shallows. I was desperate to see Otters but none were there.

River Hull By Skerne Wetlands - you can see the Brown Trout in the shallows on the left

Highlight of the insects along the riverbank was the beetle Leptura quadrifasciata, also known as the Four-banded Longhorn Beetle - I have never seen this before and I am certain I would have noticed on in Guernsey. Other new species for me were the Scorpion-fly Panorpa communis (a family we get none of in Guernsey), and two species of cranefly - Ptychoptera contaminata and Nephrotoma quadrifaria.

Four-banded Longhorn Beetle (Leptura quadrifasciata) - Skerne Wetlands, 26 Jul 24

Azure Damselfly - Skerne Wetlands, 26 Jul 24

The next day, Saturday 27th July, was spent wandering in Driffield, where I saw two high-flying Red Kites over my parents’ house - the first I have seen in the area. A walk down the canal saw a fly-by Gadwall amongst the commoner species. On the Sunday, me and Aidan went to Flamborough which was a stupid idea because it was rammed with holidaymakers - I have never seen it so busy - there was a 10 min queue for the parking machine! We didn’t stay very long and didn’t really see anything of note.

Mystacides azurea - Driffield Canal, 27 Jul 24

Late in the evening we decompressed with another visit to Skerne. On the way in we saw two Grey Partridges running along the road. Birding was a bit better as we had both Great Spotted Woodpecker and Kingfisher, as well as lots of post-breeding Swallows starting to mass together. I managed to net both a Small and a Brown China-mark moth, the latter being a tick, the last ‘common’ chna-mark I needed.

Brown China-mark - Skerne Wetlands, 28 Jul 24

Small China-mark - Skerne Wetlands, 28 Jul 24

On my last full day I paid a final visit to Skerne with Dad and it was very hot indeed. The species were much the same but there were more dragonflies out with plenty of Brown Hawkers and (maybe?) Southern Hawkers patrolling. Looking down in a ditch I saw a frog sunbathing on a floating bit of wood and it looked pretty large, very bright green and a little odd. Looking at the pictures when I got back I identified it as a Marsh Frog which was a new species for me. Not a native species, this is an amphibian that originally escaped from captivity. It is mostly seen in SE England but the Hull River valley seems to be a stronghold for the species.

Rook - Driffield, 29 Jul 24 - even very common species are pretty magnificent when you never see them!

This month marks 15 years since the start of this nature diary/blog. Back in June 2009 I was posting sometimes a few times a week about what I was seeing, a bit different to the monthly summaries that I tend to do nowadays. Was I just seeing more than I do now or am I just being more efficient? I don’t really think there is a great difference (although it’s true my birding sessions are not as regular as they were in those days). I had been moth catching for quite a while but I was just starting out on other wildlife groups so there were lots of “new” things to see and write about. Guernsey has a literal limit to where can be visited, and so nowadays I tend to see many things that I have seen before and so are less likely to get talked about in a post. One of the reasons for starting the blog in the first place was that I had got better camera equipment so I had much more pictures to put on, although these were still just digi-scoping pics in the main. On the first week of the blog I was talking about the breeding Fan-tailed Warblers at port Soif and hearing the male singing every day through the car window as I drove to work. I presumed that by 2024, the species would have colonised and be commonly nesting all over Guernsey. It’s never happened since!

Early Summer 2024 was a busy time but not really bird-wise. The most unusual sighting was two Brent Geese resting on Vazon Beach on 15th July. I have never seen any in summer here and I think there must be only a couple of mid-summer records at all for Guernsey. These birds should have been in the high Arctic at this time of year.

There weren’t many great nights for moth-trapping that coincided with weekends, the early summer being not particularly warm this year. I had a few species that I’d only caught once or twice before such as Coleophora mayrella and Pandemis cerasana. The night of 19th July was particularly good for micros and I caught a new species for Guernsey - Mompha propinquella (White-headed Mompha). It was really fresh and very distinctive with its white head and back tufts. I also had a quick check of the Coleophora scabrida colony on L’Ancresse and it was still going strong with lots of tiny cases on the Rupturewort.

The most interesting non-lepidopteran I found in June was the Small Velvet Ant (Smicromyrme rufipes), something that I have never seen or heard of before. Velvet Ants are not actually ants but a type of wasp and the big species are famous for having the most painful sting of any insect. However, there are only two species in the UK and this species is the really tiny, just a few mm long, and is unlikely to sting. I caught a male first, one of a few that were flying around a sandy path at L’Ancresse. Very hairy with a red thorax and silver bands on the abdomen. A few days later I saw a female scuttling around on the sand by Portinfer car park. The females lack wings, hence why they are called “ants”, which they do look quite like.

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Mark Lawlor's Nature Blog

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