Pantilius

In late summer and early autumn  always seem to undergo a period of photographic ennui, and this year is no exception. The rather dull and rainy weather hasn't helped either. 

On Tuesday I spent some time going through my images of the Lincolnshire flora, ready for a meeting on Wednesday afternoon with a staff member from the Lincolnshire Wildlife Trust, who's hoping to use some of them to produce banners advertising a new Heritage Lottery funded project based on the flora of the county which will run over the next three years. I'm hoping to get involved in other ways too, including the exciting prospect of providing a series of workshops on wildflower photography.

Today the sun appeared and it almost felt quite summery so Pete and I went out to the southern end of Castor Hanglands to retrieve some pitfall traps he'd set a few weeks ago. While he was busy doing this I photographed a sample of the late-season insects, though I had no success with the many hornets that were buzzing around, hunting over the vegetation, but never quite settling. 

This splendid bug, Pantilius tunicatus initially landed on my camera, but I gently coaxed it onto a nearby bush. It's large size (8-10mm) and spectacular colouring make it almost unmistakeable. The extent of the red markings is variable, and newly emerged adults can be almost entirely green. It's reasonably common and widespread across southern Britain at least, inhabiting the lower branches of hazel, alder and birch. However, it's often overlooked because it doesn't emerge until September or October.