Bee Boles

Bee holes are essentially holes built into a south-facing wall for placing bee-hives into, they usually date from before the 19th century, when modern, wooden bee-hives were made commercially available. Normally built into dry-stone walls but occasionally designed into brick walls, bee boles are almost always situated in a south-facing wall and usually accompanied a

The Green Hairstreak

As some of you might know I’m on Twitter quite a lot, mainly following other people who post about nature and history here in the north of England. Today I saw the following video of a kaleidoscope of Green Hairstreak butterflies filmed by Dinesh Patel (@lancsgp) and was inspired to write about this beautiful species,

The Hebrew Character Moth, and a few notes about moth migration

Appearance The Hebrew Character, Orthosia gothica, is a member of the Noctuidae family and named after the prominent mark on each of its wings which resembles the character ‘nun’ in the Hebrew alphabet or the form of a gothic arch (hence the scientific name gothica). It is a medium sized moth about 3.5cm long with

The Comma

The Comma, Polygonia c-album, named after the comma shaped mark on its white underwings, is a very striking butterfly in appearance and can be found in large numbers at the right time of year on its favourite plants. They are orange and black with ragged looking wings which break up their outline and make them

Bumblebees and how to encourage them

Bumblebees are often confused with Honeybees but are larger, furrier, and generally black with either white, yellow or red bands across the end of their tails. There are 24 different species of bumblebees to be found in the British isles, many of which can be seen in the Northwest of England including two which I’ve

The Violet Oil Beetle

The Violet Oil Beetle, Meloe violaceous, is an unusual looking beetle, similar, but not to be confused, with the Violet Ground Beetle and quite large, at about 3cm long and as its name suggests, a rather striking violet colour. It is an insect of strange proportions, its front end being almost ant-like, with a rounded

The Bilberry Bumblebee

Queen of the Mountain The Bilberry, or Mountain, Bumblebee, Bombus monticola, (bombus meaning ‘bee’, and monticola meaning ‘mountain’) is a relatively small, but gorgeous looking bumblebee with a distinctive orange/red behind making up two-thirds of its abdomen and two lemon yellow stripes on its thorax, or middle parts. The queens, workers and males all have

Eristalis tenax, the Common Drone Hoverfly

The Common Drone Hoverfly Eristalis tenax, is one of the most common and ubiquitous hoverflies to be found in the British isles, and usually the first to emerge, as adults that have hibernated all winter begin to sense the warmer days outside and venture forth to feed before other flying insects do. At about 1cm

Catching moths in winter

As winter is slowly waning, the days getting longer and the nights milder, it becomes a bit more pleasant to leave the house and see what wildlife might be around in the neighbourhood, also tentatively poking its head out from hibernation and eager to get out and about. One way of doing this is moth

The Clumsy yet Crucial Cranefly

This article looks at the Cranefly, AKA Daddy Long-legs, both generic names for adult members of the Tilupidae family. Its larvae, the scourge of the gardener and lawn aficionado alike, are known as Leatherjackets. Craneflies are what are called ‘true flies’, meaning they only have a single pair of wings, and their family name Tipulidae