Bucolic Black and Yellow. Stem Sawfly, Calameuta filiformis, on Ranunculus acris, Common Buttercup, Océ-weerd, Meuse Corridor, Venlo, The Netherlands

Then in the bright Sunshine I hiked north leaving the ancient gravelled processional trail to the chapel of Genooij on the right to traipse cow-byways along the verdant banks of the Meuse River. Just beyond the willows leaning over the River before you get to the Velden viaduct there's a rivulet. It's a half-shady spot with clumps of gleaming Yellow Flags (Iris pseudacorus), a variety of pretty Blue Forget-me-nots, lots of flowering grasses, Buttercups, Daisies, Purple Meadow Sage (Salvia pratensis), and many others. What's more, the main River Current speeds five or six metres away from the bank, leaving a nice placid spot for a dip. So who was I not to strip off and venture out as is my wont when I'm here in the Summer. But it was really too chilly to go in above my waist. So I warmed up in the Sun in a patch of Buttercups, Ranunculus acris, for lack, of course, of "a cowslip's bell".

There as I was idling, I saw this wonderful Stem Sawfly - one of those fantastic thin Wasps - foraging in a Buttercup. It's Calameuta filiformis. The 'filiformis' is clear, 'thread-formed', or perhaps ad sententiam 'like a needle'. Calameuta, I think, must be from one of the Theocritan bucolic poems in which various rustic professions are lauded among which Kalameutai (καλαμευταί), Harvesters or Reapers. And that was just what this Sawfly was doing however scytheless, while Your Photographer let his camera do its own work.

Done