Cooking for Microsoft

My daughter is involved in an inter-school cookery competition. Last night, she and a friend won through to the second round which is to be held at Thames Valley University.  She says that the eventual winners will be invited to help for a day in the canteen at the Microsoft Campus here in Reading.  We had a discussion about what dishes would be appropriate to cook for Microsoft.  The best we could come up with was 'Apple crumble', as in "I'm going to make Apple crumble for Microsoft!"

Red Kite

A red kite (Milvus milvus), photographed from our living room window. As I have probably said before, they are fairly common in the Reading area, but this is the best photo I have managed in several years of trying.  I just never seem to have the camera ready when they appear.

Photo taken in Reading, UK on 2009-10-24.

Pygmy Moth

A pygmy moth (Lepidoptera: Nepticulidae) on a blackberry leaf (Rubus sp.). Most pygmy moths are leaf miners, that is their larvae eat their way through the insides of leaves.  There are several species that have this single white stripe across dark grey wings, with white legs and and an orange head, but I suspect this specimen is probably Stigmella aurella (=Nepticula aurella=Stigmella fruticosella). Firstly, S. aurella is widely quoted (eg: here and in Insects of Britain & Northern Europe by Michael Chinery, Collins, 1993) as being one of the commonest of this type of moth in the UK and, secondly, it specializes in mining Rubus. The matches for the following species are not as good: Stigmella pretiosa (found in Scotland but not in England), Stigmella plagicolella (mines blackthorn and other Prunus trees, but not Rubus), Stigmella salicis (mines broad-leaf willows, but not Rubus), Stigmella obliquella (mines smooth-leaf willows, but not Rubus), Stigmella tityrella (mines beech trees, not Rubus), Stigmella microtheriella (mines hazel and hornbeam, but not Rubus), Stigmella luteella (mines birch trees, not Rubus), Ectoedemia occultella (mines birch, not Rubus), Ectoedemia heringi (mines oak leaves, not Rubus).  Of course, it is possible that this moth was only on the bramble leaf by accident, and that its larva had mined a leaf on a nearby tree.

Photo taken in Whiteknights Park, Reading University grounds, Reading, UK, on 2009-07-16.

Hoverfly

From an overcast day back in August, a male Leucozona glaucia hoverfly (Diptera: Syrphidae).

Photo taken below Highcliff, near Guisborough, North Yorkshire, UK, on 2009-08-06.

Muscid Fly

Over the past few months I have seen and photographed lots of grey and grey-green flies like this one, but have not had much success with identifying them.  However, the orange abdomen of this one gave me hope that I might be in with a chance of identifying it down to the genus or even species level.  And, yes, a search through diptera.info showed a fairly good match with several species of Phaonia, in particular P. rufiventris, P. subventa and P. bitincta (all Diptera: Muscidae).  I also came across some posts by Joke van Erkelens in this thread at diptera.info which indicate how to distinguish these species.  But, unfortunately, my photos are not clear enough to allow me to do this, so I will have to stick with Phaonia sp. for the time-being, at least.

Photos taken in Whiteknights Park, Reading University grounds, Reading, UK, on 2009-10-25.