Shieldbug eggs with a just hatched nymph. I'm afraid I can't go beyond that.

M.

In that case I don't think there's any doubt about it.

M.

I'd prefer to see more of the hindwing underside, but it looks pretty good for Nevada Blue. I assume you were high up, probably over 2000m ?

M.

This extraordinary sight may help to explain the current Drang nach Westen: http://www.lepiforum.de/lepiwiki.pl?Nym ... anthomelas. Scroll down to Biologie and click on the right hand photo.

M.

I can't see anything wrong with the Minsmere butterfly. It has a distinctly white mark near the apex of the forewing and the hindwing shows a broad dark border typical of xanthomelas . I'd say it was a cast-iron copper-bottomed Yellow-legged Torty. As for the Norwich insect, I might be persuaded to ...

Your caterpillars haven't actually shrivelled up; they've just shed their skins or moulted, and moved off to continue to feed elsewhere in the nettle patch.

M.

Guy Like you I suspect that Novus has been got at by bugs, but not necessarily Forest Bugs. Another possible culprit is the Spiked Shieldbug Picromerus bidens , which overwinters in the egg stage, and at this time would be nymphs. I attach an ancient photo showing one with a Speckled Wood larva impa...

your cockroach is a male Dusky Cockroach Ectobius lapponicus. Haven't seen any Scarce Chasers here either (Bournemouth area).

M.

Oak Eggar, Lasiocampa quercus.

M.

Mouth-watering landscapes. I hope you didn't neglect the orthoptera! I'd love to see some of them in your report. I'm all agog.

M.

For some unfathomable reason I had it in my mind that the photo was taken in France. But where was it taken? New Forest Burnet is of course highly unlikely almost anywhere in the UK, as pointed out by MikeOxon.

M.

Wing shape suggests a possible New Forest Burnet Zygaena viciae which can have a red band on the abdomen.

M.

It's the dreaded Solomon's Seal Sawfly Phymatocera aterrima, so not a lepidopteran.

M.

As far as I know, the BSBI uses Stace - New Flora of the British Isles, 3rd Edition.

M.

I have just seen your posting of 4 June. Take another look at your Southern Small White. I think you'll agree it's a Green-veined White.

M.

See: http://babochki-kavkaza.ru/index.php/ny ... nata-.html for a very useful pictorial summary of the differences between phoebe and ornata. Scroll down to just before the section on biology (early stages etc) and click on the box on the right.

M

I agree the first is Small Copper, and the other copper appears to be Lycaena asabinus. I'll leave the fritillary to someone else!

M.

Just a note about duponcheli. The spring generation is easy to recognise thanks to the distinctly greenish hindwing underside. You will know it when you see it. Here's one I prepared earlier, June 1981 to be exact, on the shores of lake Mikri Prespa, N.W. Greece.

I was interested to see that Testudo Man had seen 2 Red Admirals yesterday in Kent, because while walking at Hengistbury Head and Wick, Bournemouth yesterday I saw 4 of the beauties, the first I have seen since my only other sighting this year in early March. I believe these were immigrants rather t...

Hold your horses, this is the rarer Ground Lackey Malacosoma castrensis, a denizen of salt marshes in this country, including the north Kent marshes. It differs from the Lackey in feeding on herbaceous plants rather than trees and shrubs.

M.