Beetles and bugs

I went to Trench Wood today, in search of beetles and bugs, and found a couple of species I'd never photographed there before. 

The main image is a Gorse Shieldbug, which was by far the more unexpected of the two, as this damp woodland is about as far from the dry heaths and screes that support gorse as you could possibly imagine. That said, this bug is also known to use other leguminous foodplants including vetches, and these do grown in Trench Wood. Nonetheless I was surprised when I spotted it, not least because it's only the second specimen of this species I've ever seen, but it's a distinctive bug and I immediately knew what it was. 

The Gorse Shieldbug is quite large, at just over a centimetre in length, and the red antennae and plain pale border around its pronotum, corium and connexivum are diagnostic. Like many shieldbugs it changes colour with the seasons: the rather washed-out red, grey and green of this specimen are typical of a young adult, but as it prepares for winter hibernation its colours will deepen, and when it emerges next spring it will develop its breeding colours, turning a rich olive green with brighter highlights. I will certainly be looking for fully mature specimens at Trench next spring, though I'm still not fully convinced about the suitability of this site for a bug that prefers warm and dry conditions.

My second photo shows a Hazel Leaf-roller, sometimes mistakenly called a Hazel Leaf-rolling Weevil - a beetle that shouldn't have any difficulty at all colonising Trench Wood, given the quantity of hazel there. Again, I'd never seen one at this site before, but today I found two on different trees along the main ride. Although we have a few red beetles in the UK, this is a very distinctive little beast, with an elongated head, narrow neck, bell-shaped pronotum and heavily punctured wing cases. It's around 6-8mm long. 

Adult Hazel Leaf-rollers emerge in May and breed through May and June. The females cut and roll hazel leaves into cylinders, and lay their eggs within them; the larvae feed and develop, and then pupate, inside the rolls. New adults emerge in July and August, and a second generation of eggs is then laid, which overwinter as larvae within autumn-shed leaf rolls, to pupate and eclose the following spring.