Unknown Larvae

snowstreams

Hi all, I was wondering if you could help me figure out what these larvae could be?
They first appeared on my driveway 2 weeks ago during dry weather but after a wet period. They then dried up and died.
Then over the weekend another load of them appeared. hundreds of them this time. 
They look like a maggot but far too big to be a normal maggot and from looking at their droppings they seem to eat plant matter, (ie green)
Whatever they are, they aren't surviving too well in the dry or sunshine.
 

Alun

Crane fly larvae I reckon. Probably came from your lawn.

snowstreams

Yeah they must sneak up out of the lawn during the night!
We do get a lot of Craneflies around so that would make sense. We are beside a wood too. 
A lot of rooks had been picking through our lawn recently too. So they must have been after these larvae.
Its strange because we never had them on the driveway in previous years.

snowstreams

The larvae are commonly called Leatherjackets i see and they eat grass roots.

So thats why large parts of my lawn has died over the winter. At least the crows poking the ground for the grubs would have improved drainage and aeration and I thought it was the crows that had killed the grass!
Are nematodes a safe thing for the environment to use to control these guys? 
They dont attack worms and bees anyway. 
Hopefully they will just go away soon.

Alun

Ah yes, I was going to mention that they were probably eating your lawn from the roots up Sorry!

Perhaps you should post over in the Gardening forum for some advice on how to get rid of them.

snowstreams

I sprinkled my lawn with the native nematode steinernema feltiae. 
It should hopefully dramatically reduce the population of leatherjackets (cranefly larvae) in my grass.
I put the worms under my kids microscope, and you could see them clearly, though no chance to see them with the naked eye. 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qPo7Q45klHA