A sunny morning with just a light breeze, yet there were so few butterflies about that it was quite easy to count them. The latest one to be the day’s most numerous was Small White on 9, followed by 5 Small Heath, 4 Common Blue, 1 Small Copper, 1 Brown Argus and just 1 Meadow Brown with wings so torn it was almost unrecognisable. Just 21 in total and the same 6 species as Tuesday.

I did record two new wildflowers for the season, but probably more because of what I saw on them, rather than them standing out as something different since they were both yellow composites. I found Common Carder Bee (Bombus pascuorum) and two hoverflies, Black-tailed Aphideater (Eupeodes luniger) and Stripe-faced Drone Fly (Eristalis nemorum) on Hawkweed Oxtongue (Picris hieracioides). The second hoverfly was also a first for the season.

It was another hoverfly, a Common Banded Hoverfly (Syrphus ribesii) on the other composite, Lesser Hawkbit (Leontodon saxatilis).

In another first for the season, I recorded galls of the Common Spangle Gall Wasp (Neuroterus quercusbaccarum) and its cousin the Smooth Spangle Gall Wasp (Neuroterus albipes) on the same oak leaf. The former tends to occur in clusters and can cover the entire underside of a leaf, whereas it is unusual for more than one or two of the latter to occur on one leaf. My image shows a second leaf on which there is another single N. albipes gall.

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