Other guests (spider alert, for arachnophobes)

There was a frost last night and it emptied the eggboxes as thoroughly as the virus lockdown has cleared the country's usually bustling streets. There were just three moths with the fortitude to be out and about, or possibly they were hiding in the eggboxes from two nights ago: a Small Quaker, a Powdered Quaker and a Brindled Beauty. There was also a menacing looking spider - below - which reminded me to have a little catch-up on light-trap visitors which are not moths. For example, the Dor or Dung beetle at the top.

Here's the spider, with the remains of its prey - the sort of image which understandably turns many people into spider-haters, in spite of the best efforts of children's books such as Charlotte's Web. We have quite a lot of spiders in the house and always have had, including one enormous one in Leeds which used to come out to watch the then Nine O'Clock News on the BBC  We called him or her Bob. But they don't have the rather fierce and sinister appearance of these garden ones.

I am waiting to hear about their ID from iRecord's spider expert(s). Meanwhile, I have had very quick confirmation of these two caddis flies, below, from Dr Ian Wallace of Liverpool University, the head of the National Trichoptera Recording Scheme who dealt with my records at fantastic speed.   The top one is Grammotaullius nigropunctatus (the second part of the name presumably meaning 'Black Spot' like in Treasure Island) and the darker one is Limnephilus affinius. What a wonderful thing iRecord is!

Likewise, I have had this ichneumon wasp identified as Ophion scutellaris by Dr Gavin Broad of the Natural History Museum in London.  A very big thank you to both.

I am faring less successfully with the snails which creep into the bowl from time to time. Being completely ignorant of the genre, I sent them off just as 'Snails' which led the iRecord computer to send some of them to a marine mollusc specialist.  He kindly directed me to a snail enthusiasts' Facebook page to help me try a more precise guess which the appropriate expert can then examine. So there is another enjoyable lockdown task.

Update:  I have to admit that my latest iRecord was not very heroic. I sent off the photo below with the category 'Millipedes', which I thought these squiggly chestnut things which abound in our garden, to be.  Back came the laconic comment from the millipede expert: 'Centipede!'  Whoops...  I have re-submitted the record as a 100 (rather than 1000)-legger and await developments.