Carey Lodge
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careylodge.bsky.social
Carey Lodge
@careylodge.bsky.social
Retired Paramedic. Bees and wasps and anything else that catches my eye.
Autumn colours in the garden this week.
October 12, 2025 at 11:29 AM
Painted Lady. 6th Surrey garden record this year. Wow! #butterflies
September 29, 2025 at 9:58 AM
A daily garden sighting since August 21st has been Locust Blowfly, Stomorhina lunata. Today, two males on their lookout on the back of a metal chair and this one on a Hydrangea flowerhead. Females are here but not seen so often.
@surreybic.bsky.social
September 15, 2025 at 12:05 PM
Painted Lady in our garden today, 4th for year.
September 8, 2025 at 5:46 PM
A new Tachinid for the Send, Surrey garden and me yesterday, a female Phasia hemiptera.
@surreybic.bsky.social
August 24, 2025 at 4:30 PM
Female Brown Hairstreak, Thecla betulae, seen in our Send, Surrey garden today. The third this year.
August 19, 2025 at 12:52 PM
New for our Send, Surrey garden and me today is this Six-belted Clearwing. Gorgeous!
July 30, 2025 at 1:09 PM
Female Coelioxys conoidea in our Send, Surrey garden this morning.
July 30, 2025 at 10:26 AM
Ectophasia crassipennis in our Send garden this morning. 2nd year running. The plant is Aster × frikartii 'Mönch', very good for attracting all sorts of insects.
@surreybic.bsky.social
July 18, 2025 at 4:47 PM
A new species for me and our Send, Surrey garden today. Cordulegaster boltonii, the Golden-ringed Dragonfly.
On iRecord.
@surreybic.bsky.social
June 27, 2025 at 12:26 PM
Very happy to find the snipefly Chrysopilus laetus in our Send, Surrey garden this afternoon.

Near Threatened/ Nationally Scarce in Drake (2017, Natural England status review). Info from Steven Falk's Flickr site.
June 9, 2025 at 4:48 PM
A lifer for me today at Oaken Woods in Surrey. Eucera longicornis, the Long-horned Bee. Very happy to make their acquaintance. Photo-bombed by a Swollen-thigh Beetle, Oedemera nobilis.

#SolitaryBeeWeek
May 23, 2025 at 1:30 PM
Another bee active now is Andrena florea. The females only collect pollen from White Bryony and males can be found patrolling over the plants. Sometimes the males will settle in the flowers for the night and the petals close over them.
#SolitaryBeeWeek
May 22, 2025 at 5:38 PM
This is the bee that started my interest in bees and then wasps. She is a rare Andrena nigrospina that visited our Surrey garden briefly in May 2017.
#solitaryBeeWeek
May 21, 2025 at 4:30 PM
To celebrate #WorldBeeDay and #SolitaryBeeWeek this is one of my favourites, Andrena labiata. This pic of a male is from 2019 but the first for this year showed up last week.
May 20, 2025 at 4:49 PM
Must have been a good hatch of Mayflies on the River Wey. Now a lot of females are egg laying on ours and our neighbours cars (the white smudges on the windscreen).
May 12, 2025 at 8:08 PM
On Puttenham Common this morning looking for bees but also found this very nice Dendroxena quadripunctata.
May 2, 2025 at 5:45 PM
Back in our Send, Surrey garden, a new species for me, Conops vesicularis.
April 27, 2025 at 12:53 PM
Beautiful start to my third Surrey BBS/WBBS of the week. Skylark singing over this field as well.
April 27, 2025 at 10:40 AM
A self sown seed from Myosotis sylvatica produced this lovely little variegated plant this year in our garden.
April 13, 2025 at 9:51 PM
1st Melecta albifrons of the year in our Send, Surrey garden.
March 29, 2025 at 2:24 PM
1st Tree Bee, Bombus hypnorum, oty in our Send garden today. Records were down 39% last year. Hope they have a better spring in 2025.
March 2, 2025 at 6:37 PM
Better photo this morning.
December 16, 2024 at 8:42 AM
Moth trap out this evening with mild, dry weather. Tathorhynchus exsiccata, a first for me and our Send, Surrey garden. @migrantmothuk.bsky.social @surreybic.bsky.social
December 15, 2024 at 11:01 PM
Have you seen this paper? Characterisation of some species groups of Brachymeria (Hymenoptera: Chalcididae), with a review of the B. tibialis-group........
Duval,G and Shaw,M. August 2022, Zootaxa. This male from Surrey id'd to recently described Brachymeria zygaenae
December 4, 2024 at 5:55 PM