Wednesday 13 October 2010

Suffolk Bugs (Part 1)

As I mentioned in an earlier post our recent holiday to Suffolk produced more bugs than birds so I need to make use of the pictures I obtained.

Firstly on a walk at Dunwich Heath we spotted the big impressive beetle shown below. My field guide (Complete British Wildlife by Paul Sterry - Published by Collins) says this is a Great Diving Beetle. The margins of the electra and thorax are marked orange-brown. The male has a smooth shiny electra where the females is grooved both the adults and larvae are fearsome predators.




Secondly, the next two bugs were at Snape Warren RSPB which you access by walking down the north side of the River Alde estuary from Snape Maltings, through the reed beds and along the bank of the estuary where the wildlife possibilities are great. The header shot shows the path away from the famous Snape Maltings and the Concert Hall.

The first up I think is a Forest Bug which has an almost rectangular pronotum and broad square shoulders which come to a point. The pale spot at the tip of the scutellum is often orange as in this case. They feed on the sap of a wide range of trees and sometimes damage fruit. They also feed on small caterpillars and other insects.



Then one of the various crickets/grasshoppers on the warren not sure what this is, answers on a postcard to Mike unsprung! Off to get a cricket /grasshopper guide. I would appreciate advice!






5 comments:

Chris said...

Excellent bug post Mike. What lens did you use for this? I love the two first shots very much, and they are not so easy to do!

Mike Randall Bird Photography said...

Thanks Chris, the pictures were taken with my Sigma 50-500mm lens at the long end, hand held. Not really the way to do it but the walk was a bit to far for me to carry the tripod and the narrowness of the paths would restrict its use. I would like a macro lens sometime.

Mike Randall Bird Photography said...

Sorry, Chris you mean the Great Diving Beetle! Same lens at 500mm focal length but very much on the tripod!

Anonymous said...

The grasshopper is a female Chorthippus parallelus.

A good guide is A photographic guide to the grasshoppers and crickets of Britain and Ireland

by Martin Evans and Roger Edmondson

Its got a pink grasshopper on the cover.

Anonymous said...

Sorry forgot to mention there are two species of shield bugs in your photos the top one is as you say Pentatoma rufipes. The pair in copula are Picromerus bidens