1. The following observation was posted on the BWARS Forum by Keith Balmer:
Today I twice observed Mellinus arvensis females dangling their diptera prey over the edge of oak leaves for several minutes at a time, apparently suspended by their tongues(?), then flying with the fly slung beneath them supported by their legs to another leaf only to repeat the dangling process. Eventually they flew off with the flies, presumably to their burrows.
Can anyone tell me what this dangling business is about please? The flies seemed immobilised… Read more
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Submitted by Nigel Jones on
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Submitted by Nigel Jones on
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From: Edie Jolley, PIE, Rothamsted, June 2007
11 June 2007 – Market Rasen, Lincolnshire
Whilst carrying out fieldwork in SRC willow on 11th June 2007, I saw two species of bumblebee workers (Bombus terrestris/lucorum and B. lapidarius) which were apparently feeding on honeydew residues on the willow crop. The willows were host to willow aphids (Tuberolachnus salignus?) and the honeydew they produced had collected on the branches and near the ground and become blackened (possibly with fungus). Bumblebees were observed ‘searching’ the ground around… Read more
Submitted by Nigel Jones on
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Submitted by Nigel Jones on
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Submitted by Nigel Jones on
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Submitted by Nigel Jones on
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Submitted by Stuart Roberts on
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Arthur Wilson Stelfox (1883-1972)
(Adapted from an appreciation published in The Irish Naturalists' Journal in January 1973, with several contributing authors)
Arthur Wilson Stelfox was born in Belfast in 1883, the youngest child of James Stelfox, M.I.C.E., from Cheshire, and his wife Jennie Mcllwaine, daughter of the Rector of St. George's, Belfast. He was educated at Campbell College, Belfast, and trained as an architect in London and in Belfast, obtaining his A.R.I.B.A. in 1909. His father had joined the Belfast Naturalists'… Read more