Lots of Insects for National Insect Week!

This week is National Insect Week, an opportunity to highlight the small creatures that are all around us and far more important than most of us give credit to! 

Insects are well known to be in decline, scientific surveys tell us so and my own experience has shown far fewer insects around than there were even just a few years ago. Today, however, when walking along the Water of Leith for my weekly volunteering session of picking litter and recording wildlife, I was very impressed by all the insects I saw.  

I saw at least six Red Admirals

along with a good number of Speckled Wood Butterflies (who were flying too quickly for my camera). 

I saw lots of hoverflies, mostly Banded Hoverflies (Syrphus sp) 

This pretty insect below is a plant bug Grypocoris stysi, (click on the image for a closer look)

 and the fly below is Poecilobothrus nobilitatus. Several of these flies were fluttering around low in the vegetation and in the muddy ground. (Again click on the image for a closer look). 

I also saw lots of bees, mostly Buff / White Tailed Bumblebees, but also Tree Bumblebees and Common Carders.