Bug hunting on Arthur's Seat

We met up with Suzanne Burgess of Buglife for a bug hunt in Holyrood Park. After a quick lesson in using sweep nets...

... we set off up the hill to see what we could find in the long grass...

Green lacewing

Truebug (left) and one of the many flies 

Sweeping amongst the buttercups and orchids

Soon everyone had caught things in pots to ask Suzie about...

Cranefly, owning the pot

It was a cloudy day without many pollinators about, but we did catch a worker Red tailed bumblebee, giving Suzie the chance to tell us about the seven common bumblebees we're likely to see in Edinburgh: Buff tailed, White tailed, Red tailed, Common carder, Early, Garden, and the recently arrived Tree bumblebee. There's a guide to most of these here.

Bumblebee ID

We saw the grub (which looks like a caterpillar in a crash helmet) and the adult of a Sawfly, both of which seemed to enjoy the attention:

Sawfly grub. Hey, mister!

Sawfly adult, posing

We did catch one butterfly, despite the clouds, a Small copper:

But as it's Moth Night (which lasts all weekend), it's appropriate that we had more chance to see some of Edinburgh's beautiful, diverse and underappreciated moths:

Silver-ground carpet moth

Carpet moth ID

Micromoth

Tiny, intricately patterned micromoths busy pollinating a dandelion

There were quite a lot of Click beetles around, and much discussion of how various jumpy things jump:

But the most abundant invertebrates about were flies: who knew they were so diverse and interesting? 

A pregnant hoverfly, with a fat abdomen

Non-biting midge (with punk hair!)

Soldier fly

My favourite: a Dagger fly

Many thanks to Suzie for such an interesting and inspiring outing!

You can find out more about Buglife and support its work by becoming a member on its website, buglife.org.uk. You can also follow it on Twitter at @buzz_dont_tweet. 

For information on future Wild Reekie events, join our Meetup group. You can also follow me on Twitter at @eleanormharris. 

You never know where Meetup friendships might lead... I introduced these two weevils to each other in this pot.