It is that time of year again, the martins are getting ready to go, the lanes are as overgrown as they get before the hedgerows are shorn, and the sloes are abundant.

scorpionfly - drunk and disorderly

this odd looking creation is a female scorpion fly (Panorpa communis), lacking the scorpion like tail of the male, but looking like a horse from the Andromeda galaxy. Its habits are fascinating (see link). This one was clearly inebriated and was unable to stay upright on the leaf. I suspect it had been at fermented fruit juice. They are primitive insects and may have given rise to all other flying insects.

traveller person's wort

our first proper walk for almost 4 weeks, wading through mud, swimming, eating bur docks, and generally looning about. This little plant is gipsywort which only seems to grow in one marshy patch locally. It is a member of the mint family although it has no obvious scent (or use). The flowers in the meadow have almost gone, except for some scabious (plus hover fly),




and knapweed (plus bee, ?) although now that I look closely at the picture it could be yet another bumble bee mimic, a hoverfly called criorhina floccosa or berberina,

a very small common blue

a very small blue butterfly, which I thought might be a small blue, but on closer inspection it is a female common blue, feeding on its favourite plant, bird's foot trefoil. The small blue caterpillar feeds mainly on kidney vetch (qv) of which there is none locally as far as I know.

little owl

A great treat was in store for us last night when we returned home. There on the gate post was a small owl. Dazzled by the headlights it sat quite still with a large worm in its mouth for at least a minute, no more than 3 feet away from us, before loping off into the dark of the giant sycamore trees above the duckpond. I always say always carry a camera precisely for these moments, but do I? Of course not. It appears very probable that it was a little owl (link), it certainly was very small, about 9 inches high. I am not sure which type of owl starred in Winnie the Pooh but it reminded me very much of the line drawings in the books. Perhaps all owls look wise when perched on a gatepost. Poor weather and immobility have meant few opportunities for photographs, so we are reduced to an exciting picture of slug dating.
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cooking apples

we are not the only ones who like the taste of these cooking apples. The tree is a graft from a much older tree that was the victim of honey fungus about ten years ago, and is now cropping extremely well. I know it is difficult to like wasps but they are very useful.

only 184 species to go

oh the joys of hoverflies and having the definitive guide to them (Stubbs and Falk), no longer do we need to misidentify everything as "bee". This is eristalis interruptus (or something quite close), taking a shower on some angelica. Only another 184 species or so to go.

wall brown

He is still confined to the house, so we are unable to go on our usual long and exciting walks, and are reduced to photos of things in the garden. This restless butterfly is usually difficult to photograph because it rarely stays still for very long, but here it is warming up in the morning sun getting ready for a good day's fluttering.

tortoiseshells

the common but very pretty tortoiseshell butterfly, distinguished from the rarer large tortoiseshell by the heavy black scaling around the body. There have been an amazing number of butterflies around in the last few days. Something must be going right.

eyes in the back of your head

another close up of the hover fly. What interested me was the little shield between the two compound eyes with three little raised spots. These are called ocelli (from the latin ocelus or eye). Their function is a bit of a mystery, but they may be associated with the fly's ability to orientate itself in 3 dimensions when flying (see link). Isn't life interesting.

How long will it last ...

up on Bodmin moor, looking towards Kit Hill (just visible in the background), surrounded by the ruins, puts me in mind of Ozymandias and all his works.

Look on my works, ye Mighty, and despair!"
Nothing beside remains. Round the decay
Of that colossal wreck, boundless and bare,
The lone and level moors stretch far away.

I am sure I have had this thought before up on this ancient and much abused landscape. Apologies for the liberties, "sands" in the original is much better because of the connotation with remorseless time.

white tailed bee

what would we do without knapweed. This handsome chap-ess is the white tailed bumblebee, bombus lucorum. It is common, but we have never noticed white tailed bumblebees before.

8 August:- now that we have had a closer look, most of the bees around here have white tails, which shows how unobservant we are. The bee above is particularly striking.

blue butterflies at last

these are the first blue butterflies we have seen this year. Both are common blues, the top is the female. The sun has brought them out, but the heavy constant rain of the last 6 weeks seems to have had a very bad effect on numbers locally.

Greenscombe meadows

at the top is a local rarity, Cornish bladderseed, an umbellifer so named for the shape of the seeds as seen at the top left, and beneath is a photo of the brilliant red berries of Guelder rose before the birds take all the berries.

volucella pellucens is no bee

This fly has very distinctive brown compound eyes, and a black bottom, and at first I thought it was some sort of bumblebee, but thanks to G images and my excellent Illustrated Book of Insects I am fairly sure it is a male of the largest British hoverfly species, volucella. Below a small copper making a belated appearance this year

a pair of peacocks

so similar, but not identical, two peacocks feeding on knapweed and enjoying the sun this morning.

the Flower Show 4

and some folks just couldn't care less who wins, not our sort of poodles, too small for me, could be shaggy rabbits or Yorkies or something

the Flower Show 3

It is not all about winning, either

the Flower Show 2

we have clowns and bands ( a very warm sounding brass band from Launceston)

the Flower Show

It's not all about butterflies. Our local flower show is always well supported, and takes a huge amount of effort from the organisers. The vegetables have done well this year despite or because of the wettest of wet Julys. Ann Craig, seen below, setting out the prize winners trophies has been the secretary for 34 years. At least the sun shone on this her last show.

rain free hour

it stopped raining just long enough for these butterflies, the gatekeeper or hedge brown, to get out and about without being struck down by torrents of rain and a howling gale. Summer? There are also lots of red admirals about.

insects

some of the insects out in the sun today. The red admiral must be brand new or an immigrant and is showing the lovely blue tracery on the edge of its wings. Not sure whether the middle photo is a wasp or a bee (one of the cuckoo bees, Nomada) or some sort of horse fly. Shield bug at top attacking windscreen/shield.

ps the middle photo is neither a bee nor a wasp but a gaudy imitator, a sawfly from the Tenthredinidae family. It is amazing how many hover flies and sawflies imitate bees and wasps. We are slowly getting to grips with this, no longer will we call any old striped insect a bee or a wasp.

cotehele - traveller's joy

the Tamar at Cotehele (a few miles south of home), and below, traveller's joy (or old man's beard), a wild clematis, with a soft vanilla scent. The name is reputedly relatively recent (John Gerard in 16th century) but it is such a striking plant I find it difficult to think it did not have earlier names. The dry winter stems were smoked (hence boy's bacca and shepherd's delight). It had no use in herbal medicine and seems to have been valued for its habit of climbing through hedges by the side of roads, and providing shade.

goldfinch - the one that got away

I have just fledged. It is not my fault I can't tell double glazing from the mouth of a cave. Thank you for keeping me warm. See you. And off it (a juvenile goldfinch, not a chaffinch as at first identified) went.

very small guys

Spot found these minute white, semi transparent mushrooms growing under a fallen tree. He has no idea what species they are.

Eden images

images from one of our regular trips to the Eden Project .

my hand too

the giant seed pod

meadow flowers

that horsey look

and pigs in domes

don't throw sticks

There was an item on our local news tonight (see link)about advice from a vet not to throw sticks for dogs in case they catch them in the air and the stick sticks in their throats. Cassie would like to speak to him about gratuitous advice and dog rights. Try throwing this one.

a roll in the hay

no matter, it's that time of year again, time for a roll in the hay and a roll on the hogweed if you can get it.

two variable longhorn beetles. The female is much larger than the male. The larvae live in tree stumps and dead wood.

the last of the summer wine 2

Hemp agrimony, the third of the tall hedgerow plants with large flat or daisy like flowers to appear after meadowsweet and valerian, and before orpine. The forest of long white styles is characteristic of this plant which is much favoured by butterflies as summer goes on. Named eupatorium after Mithradates VI Eupator, King of Pontus in 120BC.

pink hogwash

a spotted longhorn beetle on some pink hogweed (it is usually a greyish white). Hogweed seems to attract a wide range of unsavoury types including horse and other biting flies. The better class of umbellifer attract butterflies and bees. Why?