Scorpion fly

Hot! The only word to describe today... I was supposed to be surveying a grazing marsh in Kent, but in view of the extremely high temperatures forecast for the south-east, decided to postpone it until later in the week. The last time I surveyed the site, a few years ago, I nearly suffered from heatstroke and I didn't fancy another similar experience. So today I acted as a taxi service, dropping Pete off at a site in the Great Fen early this morning and picking him up at Woodwalton Fen in the late afternoon, meaning that he didn't have to walk so far in the heat.

The day started warm and grey, and after I'd dropped him off I went to Holme Fen with the dogs. The sun gradually broke through the cloud, and brought out a host of insects. As we walked along the boundary of the site, I was struck by the fecundity of the fen - myriads of butterflies - ringlets, green-veined whites, large skippers and a sprinkle of small tortoiseshells and commas - interspersed with the electric blue needle-shapes of damselflies. A couple of southern hawkers were hunting along the ride, and there were also quite a few spotted longhorn beetles.

But my favourite was perhaps this scorpion fly Panorpa communis.
These belong to an ancient group of insects known as 'Mecopterans' which can be traced back more than 250 million years. Although they look fearsome they're completely harmless. The scorpion-like tail of the male, which gives them their common name, just contains a pair of claspers used for mating. And although the extended beak looks fearsome, the mouthparts at the end are tiny, and mainly used for eating dead insects, often stolen from spider's webs.

I took my camera with me when I picked Pete up from Woodwalton Fen, but it was too hot to walk around with it. And I'd managed to rip a toenail off on a supermarket trolley, so my foot was a bit painful! We stood for a while on the bridge over the Great Ravely Drain and watched the fish under the cool water - very tempting to jump in. There were rafts of yellow water-lily leaves and frogbit being used by red-eyed damselflies, and scarce chasers were defending their territories, with impressive aerial skill. I managed to get a couple of shots of these, but as it's coming towards the end of the season all the males were heavily battle-scarred.

When we arrived home Pete and I just stood in the paddling pool with a chilled beer - sheer bliss!