Friday, 2 Oct 2026

It is that time of year when leaves are starting to fall. Very distracting, when a yellowed leaf flutters down and your immediate reaction is ‘Butterfly’, even though you know that butterfly season is over. I did, however, see a single late Meadow Brown.

The ivy bees are out in great numbers. Almost every patch of the now fully flowering ivy that I scanned had swarms of pollen-laden female Ivy Bee (Colletes hederae).

Ten days ago I posted an image of a Trash-line Spider (Cyclosa conica) and noted how it weaves discarded body parts from its prey and other debris into a ‘trash’ line, which it then uses as camouflage. Today I came across a much better example of this.

Despite there not being too many insects on the wing, I did manage to add a new hoverfly to my Downs list, a Migrant Hoverfly (Eupeodes corollae).

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