At this time of year we would normally be making a few trips by train and bus to various parts of the Norfolk countryside to look for wildlife. That isn’t an option at the moment, so we have been spending even more time in the garden than usual.

The warm, sunny weather over the last week has brought out the insects, including many “old friends”, but also several new species for the garden. Here are seven of them in more detail. (Strictly, one was in the house, rather than the garden.)

Saturday 4th April – Breckland Leatherbug

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The Breckland Leatherbug, Arenocoris waltlii, was thought to be extinct until 2011, when it was rediscovered in Suffolk. It is a Breckland speciality and we have seen it at Weeting Heath in Norfolk, along with the commoner Fallén’s Leatherbug, Arenocoris fallenii. It was good to see it in Norwich.

The main difference between the two close relatives is that the Breckland Leatherbug’s third antennal segment is thickened towards the tip and its pronotum lacks the two backwards pointing rows of pale spines found in Fallén’s Leatherbug. These differences were clearly visible under a binocular microscope.

Anyway, our Breckland Leatherbug turned up on the wall below our kitchen window, where it was spotted by eagle-eyed Vanna. The insect feeds on Common Storksbill, Erodium circutarium, which grows at the edge of the grass just down the road. (We also grow a cultivated Erodium in the front garden, just yards away from our find.)

Monday 6th April – Pied Shieldbug

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We have previously seen several Pied Shieldbugs (Tritomegas bicolor) on our allotment, where they feed on White Deadnettle, Lamium album, and Black Horehound, Ballota nigra. But it was a nice surprise on Monday 6th April to find our first garden Pied Shieldbug. It was on a White Deadnettle plant which I’d planted in a plastic tub. (This spring this particular White Deadnettle plant has also been a favourite of Hairy-footed Flower Bees, Anthophora plumipes, and queen bumblebees.)

The Pied Shieldbug is a very prettily-marked insect, and has front legs adapted for digging. It can be found on suitable plant stems in sunny weather or at the base of the plants, where it will burrow into the soil to make its escape. A similiar-looking relative, Ramur’s Pied Shieldbug, Tritomegas sexmaculatus, was first found in Kent in 2011 and is likely to spread north.

A few days later we found lots more Pied Shieldbugs in a patch of Red Deadnettles on the allotment.

Tuesday 7th April 2020 – Raglius alboacuminatus

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Raglius alboacuminatus is another ‘true’ bug (Order Hemiptera). It is a member of the family Lygaeidae, a medium-sized ground bug with striking red-brown and white markings on the forewings and rear third of the pronotum.

Like the Pied Shieldbug, it likes Black Horehound. We don’t grow this in the garden (though perhaps we should!) but we do grow the related Ballota pseudodictamnus (False Dittany).

Our specimen was on the bathroom windowsill, at the back of the house, another first for the garden.

Over the Easter weekend we found lots more Raglius alboacuminatus on the allotment, on soil beneath Red Deadnettles, and we have had sightings of at least two separate individuals in the garden. Raglius alboacuminatus has both long- and short-winged (macropterous and brachypterous) forms and we have now seen both.

Wednesday 8th April 2020 – Scymnus suturalis

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We first read about inconspicuous ladybirds in the excellent Field Guide to the Ladybirds of Great Britain and Ireland by Helen Roy, Peter Brown & Richard Lewington (Bloomsbury, London,2018). They are the smaller species of ladybirds and they are less obviously “ladybird-like” than their larger, usually brightly-coloured relatives, the conspicuous ladybirds. We have 20 species in the UK.

So far, we have found four species of inconspicuous ladybirds, including this latest one, Scymnus suturalis. It was at the end of the garden on the trunk of our Tree Tobacco plant and Vanna noticed it when she tried to net a hoverfly, and missed.

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The ladybird looked a bit like Scymnus frontalis, but Vanna wasn’t convinced, so she contacted the Norfolk Beetle Recorder, Martin Collier. He eventually asked Helen Roy (of the Field Guide) for assistance and she had to seek guidance from a Scymnus expert colleague in the Czech Republic, who identified it as a variant of Scymnus suturalis. (S. suturalis normally has a black head.)

Scymnus suturalis is normally associated with conifers and the aphids and adelgids that live on them. There is a row of leylandii at the back of next door’s garden and a Scots Pine in a garden two doors away.

Friday 10th April 2020 – Aphodius sphaecelatus

Friday 10th April brought two more species for the garden, the dung beetle Aphodius sphaecelatus (on a windowsill) and a new spider, a male Linyphia hortensis (on the patio; sorry – no photographs).

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Aphodius sphacelatus lives in the dung of herbivores (especially cow dung), and in decaying vegetable matter and fungi. Cows are rare in our part of Norwich, so ours presumably came from the latter.

The beetle is very similar to its relative Aphodius prodromus but can be distinguished by the suture line that runs across the top of its head (which was clearly visible under the binocular microscope) and by the eighth elytral stria which reaches level with the base of its scutellum.

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Two more species of Aphodius beetles appear on “K is for Kaleidoscope” and there are 49 species in the UK. Vanna is hoping to collect some more (in photographs or sketches), if not the set.

Saturday 11th April 2020 – Ptilinus pectinicornis

On Saturday morning (11th April) a magnificent wood-boring beetle turned up in our living room. It was a male Ptilinus pectinicornis, only about four or five millimetres long but equipped with amazing branched antennae like miniature antlers.

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These beetles live inside dead wood from broadleaved trees (especially in beech and willow) and spend a year chewing their way through timber before emerging as an adult insect. Doubtless ours had just emerged from some of the firewood I had brought indoors for our wood burning stove. And doubtless the recent mild weather had stopped me from bringing the beetle’s lifecycle to a fiery end.

Especially satisfying for us is the fact that Ptilinus pectinicornis is the prey of the clerid beetle Tillus elongatus, which features on Vanna’s “Q is for Quercus” plate in Arthropedia: An Illustrated Alphabet of Invertebrates.

Sunday 12th April 2020 – Mangora acalypha

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On Sunday 12th April a new spider was lying in wait in the front garden, a juvenile Mangora acalypha. We have seen the species elsewhere, but this was another first for our garden.

It is sometimes known as the Cricket-bat Orb Weaver, because of the distinctive pattern on its abdomen. This pattern has also been likened to a bottle of wine, which makes me realise – is that the time?