A bit quiet on the birding front over the past few weeks, apart from two major dips - the Slimbridge Little Bustard and Llanelli's Collared Pratincole.
I did have a bit more excitement with other taxa, however. On 7 July, I toursed round a number of sites in Gwent. One of those was Slade Wood, looking for White Admiral and Sliver-washed Fritillary. A single, fly over, White Ad was the best I managed for those species, but in a cleared area I stopped to photograph some plants, including Lesser Centaury, when I noticed a couple of small bugs running around. They looked like Tortoise Shieldbugs, Eurygaster testudinaria, a species I had seen previously at Crymlyn Burrows. I took a couple of photo's, and looking at these I wasn't sure that they were Tortoise S'bugs.
On getting home, and downloading the Photo's, I went onto the excellent British Bugs website to try to confirm the id. A quick check, confirmed they were not Tortoise or even the rarer Scarce Tortoise (E. maura) Shieldbugs, as the head and pronotum shapes were all wrong. A bit more searching and I came to the Sandrunner Shieldbug, Sciocoris cursitans, which looked a perfect match. The only problem, the distribution was given as south-east England. A check on the NBN and Aderyn showed no Welsh records for this species, but NBN did show a cluster of records from the Bristol area.
I posted the photo's onto Facebook, various sites, and all were supportive of the identity. The record was submitted via iRecord and has just been accepted as the first for Wales.
I did have a bit more excitement with other taxa, however. On 7 July, I toursed round a number of sites in Gwent. One of those was Slade Wood, looking for White Admiral and Sliver-washed Fritillary. A single, fly over, White Ad was the best I managed for those species, but in a cleared area I stopped to photograph some plants, including Lesser Centaury, when I noticed a couple of small bugs running around. They looked like Tortoise Shieldbugs, Eurygaster testudinaria, a species I had seen previously at Crymlyn Burrows. I took a couple of photo's, and looking at these I wasn't sure that they were Tortoise S'bugs.
I posted the photo's onto Facebook, various sites, and all were supportive of the identity. The record was submitted via iRecord and has just been accepted as the first for Wales.
