Inverts in the Orchard, June 2019

The whole orchard smells of honeysuckle at the moment.

The orchard is home to a wide range of invertebrates. In this post I feature a bee (Fr. abeille), a damselfly, beetles (Fr. coleoptères), flies (Fr. mouches) and spiders (Fr. araignées). Mostly on Field Scabious Knautia arvensis (Fr. Scabieuse), but the yellow flower is Goats Beard Tragopogon pratensis (Fr. Salsifis des prés) and the spider is on an Oxeye Daisy Leucanthemum vulgare (Fr. Marguerite).

 Male mining bee Andrena hattorfiana, a species strongly associated with Field Scabious.

 The same mining bee, getting stuck in.

 The leaf beetle Cryptocephalus sericeus.

 A different individual of C. sericeus. This one is redder and is therefore probably older.

 Males of the Pied Hover Fly Scaeva pyrastri (Fr. Syrphe du poirier) and the Marmalade Hover Fly Episyrphus balteatus sharing a Goats Beard flower.

 Mediterranean Spotted Chafer Oxythyrea funesta (Fr. Cétoine grise).

 The same Pied Hover Fly, who's moved on to a Field Scabious and left his buddy behind.

 Male Long Hover Fly Sphaerophoria scripta. These are easy to distinguish from other Sphaerophoria spp because their abdomens are very clearly longer than their wings. None of the other species, or the females, have this characteristic.

Napoleon Spider Synema globosum (Fr. Thomise Napoléon), so named because if you look at her the other way up, the marking on her abdomen looks like Napoleon in a hat.

A male Blue Featherleg Platycnemis pennipes (Fr. le Pennipatte bleuâtre), captured by a flower spider Misumena vatia in the honeysuckle.

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