The last time I was up Beacon Hill was last winter after it had snowed. It was very different this time. The weather was warm and breezy and the rolling white clouds of August tumbled by quickly. The vista was large and unencroached by mist or haze. The yellowing fields of Nottinghamshire, Derbyshire and Leicestershire surrounded us. Whilst we ate a packed lunch a small herd of
longhorn cattle (Bos taurus) slowly ambled through the picnic spot. Many city folk were seen scrambling up their picnics and fleeing to the relative safety of the rock outcrops. The cows unperturbed would stop by the picnic benches to scratch their necks on the wooden seats. The bull seemed as docile as the rest and with his head down munching and paying no notice of the silly people.
After spending some time on the summit we decided to walk around it in the anticlockwise direction. It wasn't long before we came across this amazing creature, a male
Scorpion Fly (Panorpa communis). Now, I have seen several females of this creature before, and they are relatively boring. This male however is much more awesome as they have that enormous scorpion like sting at the end of their abdomen. This is one mean looking dude. Perfectly harmless though. Worth remembering also that this alongside the dragonflies and the damselflies it is one of the really ancient orders of insects.
A little further down the track and I became irresistibly drawn to the catkins on a birch tree. What interesting photographic subjects those are! Suddenly my eyes were drawn to a rather strange black, green and white bug that was ambling up one of the twigs. I had no idea what it was, and photographing it became tricky as it insisted on walking away every time I got close. Still stumped I ended up conferring with the insect experts on Wild About Britain who told me that this odd little fella is in fact a
Mirid Bug (Heterotoma planicornis).
The last thing I noticed was that the beech tree had, in a selection of sizes, these pretty
Birch shieldbugs (Elasmostethus interstinctus). Since I could see several of these I noticed that as they get bigger they change shape. They start out like green ladybirds and as they get older grow into their distinctive shield shapes. Thats the third shieldbug species I've seen this year. Wooo!
The last time I was up Beacon Hill was last winter after it had snowed. It was very different this time. The weather was warm and breezy and the rolling white clouds of August tumbled by quickly. The vista was large and unencroached by mist or haze. The yellowing fields of Nottinghamshire, Derbyshire and Leicestershire surrounded us. Whilst we ate a packed lunch a small herd of longhorn cattle (Bos taurus) slowly ambled through the picnic spot. Many city folk were seen scrambling up their picnics and fleeing to the relative safety of the rock outcrops. The cows unperturbed would stop by the picnic benches to scratch their necks on the wooden seats. The bull seemed as docile as the rest and with his head down munching and paying no notice of the silly people.
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