Insects enjoying the sunshine

We've had lots of sunshine recently (after a very wet winter, we're having a very dry spring and need some of those traditional April showers!). The insects are enjoying the weather though. On our #DailyExercise walk a couple of days ago, we were delighted to find this ten spot ladybird in one of the cemeteries

The ten spot is a very varied species (so varied it doesn't even always have ten spots!) you can see how many forms there are of the one species here.

We've also seen these tiny little Nomada bees in the park (I don't know what species they are, if you know, please feel free to let me know in the comments). Edited to add: I think these are Marshem's Nomad bees (Nomada marshamella) as the description fits and this species is known to occur in Edinburgh and known to parasitise Andrena species of bees including Andrena scotica, the chocloate mining bee that also occurs in the park (and which I've blogged about in recent posts).

There are sometimes lots of hoverflies about, this is a marmalade hover fly, the most common species in the UK and generally quite easy to identify with its pretty stripes (though there is also a dark form that is confusing to find!)

I post all my hoverfly sightings in the UK Hoverfly Facebook group and they then get identified (if I can't do that myself), verified (where I have been able to identify, I'm not always right about it, still learning!) and then recorded.

North Merchiston Cemetery seems to be very popular with butterflies, here's another peacock

and another tortoiseshell

What interesting insects are you seeing in your garden or on your #DailyExercise route?

For Nature Notes. 

**

The UK Government is, at the moment, allowing us out for one form of #DailyExercise once a day in addition to visiting the shops (as infrequently as possible), travelling to work (for those with essential jobs that can't be done from home) and medical emergencies including helping those who are self isolating. In England, the police advice is that you can drive to a location before walking or jogging as long as you spend more time exercising than driving, the advice from Police Scotland however, seems to be that you should not drive to a location to exercise and should only exercise very locally.