June at New Ferry Butterfly Park

Almost every day, on the New Ferry Butterfly Park Facebook page, we feature amazing photographs taken by Roy Lowry on his regular visits.

We know that not everyone uses Facebook so we have selected some of the images he has taken and shared with us in June.

Here are two busy bumblebees photographed at the beginning of the month.

Red tailed bumblebee (Bombus lapidarius)

Common carder bee (Bombus pascorum)

However life will be less easy if they are spotted by a ferruginous bee-grabber. This fly lives up to its name by grabbing hold of bumble and honey bees to lay an egg from which a larva emerges and proceeds to eat the host alive.

Ferruginous bee-grabber on a bramble flower

Close up of Sicus ferrugineus - the ferruginous bee-grabber

On most sunny day visits to the Butterfly Park Roy will photograph butterflies.

Common blue butterfly (Polyommatus icarus)

Green veined white (Pieris napi)

Both photographs show how the underside of the wings differs from the upper surface.

Recent star of the butterflies for Roy Lowry was a dingy skipper that posed on the lime waste. This was the first he had managed to photograph since 2023.

Say hello to the dingy skipper!

Dingy skipper (Erynnis tages)

Also present at the Butterfly Park this month - small coppers, speckled woods and brimstone caterpillars.

Small copper (Lycaena phlaeas)

Speckled wood (Pararge aegeria)

Caterpillar of the brimstone butterfly (Gonepteryx rhamni)

Day flying moths are good to build a story around. Roy reported “The narrow-bordered five-spot burnet moths were in a frisky mood in Saturday’s warm weather”.

Two's company for the narrow-bordered five-spot burnet moths

Three’s a crowd...

But four?????

The pond is a good place to find dragonflies and damselflies. Here are paired azure damselflies expertly photographed egg-laying in the pond.

Male and female azure damselflies (Coenagrion puella)

The male azure damselfly is blue and the female is green

Roy also photographed two male broad bodied chaser dragonflies on the pond.

They had distinctively different markings - one had much more brown colouration on the thorax and base of the abdomen, but this might change as it ages.

Broad bodied chaser dragonfly (Libellula depressa)

A Broad bodied chaser dragonfly with more brown colouration

Here’s a hairy shieldbug.

Dolycoris baccarum - or the hairy shieldbug

As the name suggests, they're covered in tiny hairs - though you may have to look closely to spot them! They are also known as sloe shieldbugs, because they're often found around blackthorns, where they use their piercing mouthparts to feed on the fruits - called sloes. They also feed on the leaves, seeds and fruits of a wide range of other plants.

Hairy shieldbugs spend the winter as an adult, emerging in spring to mate. Females lay clumps of brownish, barrel-shaped eggs that stick firmly to the chosen plant. The young, known as nymphs, are smaller and rounder than the adults, but still covered in pale hairs. They go through several stages of growth, before maturing into their adult form in late summer or early autumn.

Dock bugs - a northerly migrating species - are now very well established.

Dock bug (Coreus marginatus)

The trivial plant bug is a Mediterranean species that was introduced into the London area on imported plants and has now got this far north. Roy first saw them last year.

Trivial plant bug (Closterotomus trivialis)

This year they are joined by the cabbage bug which Roy had not seen on the Wirral before.

Cabbage bug (Eurydema oleracea)

Roy’s favourite subjects are hoverflies, especially Chrysotoxum festivum (hook-barred spearhorn).

These are specialists with larvae feeding on ant-attended root aphids. He noticed a couple of males - one had territory on the path to the lime waste and the other on the path about halfway along the lime waste, and both territories were being defended.

The territory along the lime waste was also defended last year.

Hook-barred spearhorn (Chrysotoxum festivum)

Here’s Melangyna sexguttata sensu lato which he doesn't see very often.

This name is much longer than the actual hoverfly!

Melangyna sexguttata sensu lato

These mating craneflies make an interesting image.

Cranefly courtship

Not everyone likes spiders but here’s a zebra jumping spider with its prey. 

Zebra jumping spider (Salticus scenicus)

Visitors to New Ferry Butterfly Park can also look out for beetles.

Roy photographed thick-legged flower beetles plus several spotted longhorn beetles. These were flying around the bramble flowers looking a bit like self-propelled aliens.

 Thick-legged flower beetle (Oedemera nobilis)

Spotted longhorn beetle (Rupeta maculata)

June is a good time to admire flowers at the Butterfly Park, with the red poppies and marsh orchids being particularly eye-catching.

Poppies in the wild flower strip

A marsh orchid in the limewaste

New Ferry Butterfly Park is extremely lucky to have someone of Roy’s photographic and identification skills creating a monthly visual record of its wildlife.