Sunday 7 October 2012

Loving the ivy

The late flowers of the ivy are a bug magnet in the autumn, when other sources of nectar are scarce. I have posted before on ivy fest season, but today I came across some new ivy visitors in a large ivy just starting to bloom in my local cemetery. Speckled Wood butterflies rarely visit flowers, as they usually feed on honeydew produced by aphids up in trees. So, I was pleasantly surprised to see two individuals feeding on ivy together with a Comma and many Droneflies.
Speckled Wood and Comma
Comma
Dronefly Eristalis tenax
Male wasp
Helophilus
Yellow dung fly?

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