R and I went to Denny Woods this morning, to track down one of the rarer hoverflies in the UK -
Caliprobola speciosa. R had downloaded the location details from iRecord, so we knew where to head for. The car park at Shatterford was closed for the breeding bird season, so we parked at Matley and walked in from there.
Once we got to the woodland clearing with the standing deadwood beech - it did not take long to connect with our target species, and what a splendid mini-beast it is!
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| Caliprobola speciosa |
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| Beech (Fagus sylvatica) dead wood habitat |
We spent a couple of hours in the clearing, but only managed to track down two individuals despite the amount of suitable habitat present. Both appeared to be territorial, and faithful to the trees on which they were found? Despite high numbers of other hoverfly species present, they were also fairly easy to identify in flight once you got your eye in, as they had the habit of flying with their hind legs hanging down.
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| in flight with hind legs trailing |
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| Caliprobola speciosa (second individual) |
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| dead wood features in the woodland clearing |
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| Wasp Beetle (Clytus arietis) |
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Black-headed Cardinal Beetle
(Pyrochroa coccinea) |
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