Scabious Sawfly

May Day dawned wet and gloomy, but there was a gradual improvement in the weather, with brief spells of sunshine around lunchtime.I was trying to catch up with emails, knowing that the week ahead was going to be largely occupied with preparations for Molly's 90th birthday party , and somehow I never quite managed to get beyond the garden in the nice patch. 

So today's offering is a photograph of a sawfly that Chris caught on our walk round Barnack Hills and Holes. It's rather a magnificent creature, over a centimetre in length, with a metallic golden-green body, yellow legs and clubbed antennae. It hasn't been formally identified yet, but is probably the Scabious Sawfly Abia sericea, which, as the common name suggests, can be found where there are large quantities of plants of the scabious family. It's a fairly local species, most frequently recorded in southern Britain and in Wales.