Thursday, 8 Oct 2026

The first morning with a truly autumnal feel to it. I put on a light sweater rather reluctantly, but it was definitely needed when the wind blew.

In my last report I posted an image of a female, while today it is a male Marmalade Hoverfly (Episyrphus balteatus). It seems to be the most abundant of the hoverflies now. The Common Darter dragonfly (Sympetrum striolatum) is also particularly prominent at the moment. It has the habit of basking in the sun on twigs and leaves on footpaths and other relatively clear areas, rather than perching on a plant stalk.

A first for the year was a small (4 mm) mirid bug (Lygus pratensis) found on an Old Man’s Beard leaf, but it turned out to be a good day for completely new additions to my Downs list.

First of these was a male Black Slip Wasp (Pimpla rufipes) on a horseradish leaf. This does have a huge question mark against it, as the vast majority of my ichneumon wasp records do, as there are so many lookalike species, particularly among the male wasps.

The second new species was a female Black-punctured Leaf Beetle (Galeruca tanaceti) crossing a path.

The third and most exciting find, if I have identified it correctly, is a rare shield bug of the Pentatomidae family. With only 2 official records, Sciocoris homalonotus is a relatively new arrival in the UK, recorded in Kent in 2016 and not too far here, at Chipstead Downs, in 2020.

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