The Lyons Share

I've just finished a new weekend course that I ran at Woods Mill. It was called 'Bird Survey Techniques' and it was mostly concerned with teaching people how to carry out standardised survey methodologies such as Common Birds Census, Breeding Bird Survey and point counts. It went really well, I was particularly pleased to get to grips with the interactive whiteboard, being able to flip between that, bird song on the RSPB website and my Power Point slides is a great teaching resource.

Anyway, one of the attendees spotted this big fat caterpillar, it is destined to be a Drinker, just like its parent before it. I did have one tick too. On the edge of the car park by the class room, I spotted this reed beetle feeding from an Ox-eye Daisy. I'm still to tackle the reed beetles but I thought I would give it a go. Using only the key in Joy and the notes in Cox's atlas, I am fairly confident this is Donacia semicuprea. It was but 20 m from a dense stand of Sweet Canary-grass.