Norfolk Wildlife Trust and more sightings

Yesterday we visited the Cley and Salthouse Marshes,, and became members of the Norfolk Wildlife Trust. We swam at Cley beach - the only swimmers on a scorching summer day.

European toad (Bufo bufo)

I haven’t seen a toad for a long while, so it was nice to see this one - a European toad.

On our way back to Norwich, we stopped off at Natural Surroundings and bought a verbena (bonariensis) with the goal of getting more butterflies into the garden.

Back on the balcony, I saw our first butterfly visitor that wasn’t a small/large white.

Gatekeeper (Pyronia tithonus)

And several other first sightings:

Common drone fly (Eristalis tenax).

Cross orbweaver (Araneus diadematus).

I’ve learned that there’s many hover flies that look the same. This one I believe is the black-tailed aphideater. I’m hoping that someone on iNaturalist can confirm this.

Aphideater (Eupeodes)

Potentially a root-maggot fly (Leucophora personata)

This is my second sighting of the yellow-haired sun fly. I’m posting it to remind myself of it. It’s much larger than a hover fly, and looks more like a wasp.

Yellow-haired sun fly (Myathropa florea)

Slightly gross, but these are acute bladder snails. According to my internet search, they likely came with the pond plants that we purchased. The jury is out on whether it’s a good or bad thing that they’ve made it to our pond. They reproduce quickly (bad), but also keep ponds ‘clean’, whatever that means. They’re non native but naturalized. We thought that if they get out to control, we could get some fish or remove them by hand.

Acute bladder snails (Physella acuta)

Our mallow is in flower. I believe that it’s a musk mallow.

Marsh mallow (Althaea officinalis)