adding a dash of colour

this is a young greater spotted woodpecker who is spending a lot of time in our garden. The parents may have nested in the cedar next to our house but it is very difficult to tell because the foliage is so dense.

life at the sharp end

this wasp has caught a small moth, and is presumably either going to eat it or feed it to the larvae in the nest. This is something I have read about but never actually seen in action. It caught my eye because I saw it struggling to fly off with its booty.

spot goes fishing

Spot was fascinated by the streaks of marble in the bed of the Inny and after trying to paw them decided to try and fish them out. They are very obvious now because the river is very low, and the sun was very bright. He did not catch the brown trout below, which itself seems to have forgotten about camouflage only working against the right background.

ringlets

Yet again we saw very few butteflies, well we saw lots of meadow browns and ringlets (see photo) but almost nothing else despite the warm sun and lack of wind. Where are they all?

heath bedstraw and stitchwort

the meadows by the Inny are covered, unusually, in white flowers mainly clumps of heath bedstraw and lesser stitchwort, a very delicate version of the larger greater stitchwort. The meadow had a lovely smell of honey and lemons, although my main reference book states that heath bedstraw has a sickly smell. Not true! It is amazing how these meadows change year on year and how different species flourish or struggle. A few years ago the same meadow at this time was a blaze of yellow due to bird's foot trefoil, and last year it was full of ragged robin. It is gradually becoming covered in bramble and reeds.
. !

five spot burnet

although it looks like this moth has 6 spots, the forewings have 5 spots and the red hind wings give the impression of a sixth spot (Spot has only one spot). There is a very similar moth called the narrow bordered five spot burnet but only experts can tell them apart, and of course there is the six spot burnet. The butterfly orchids are out much later this year, and there seems to be a general paucity of butterflies. Below is a picture of a mixture of greater and lesser butterfly orchids in Greenscombe meadows.

even more things we haven't seen locally 6

these little chaps are know as gendarme beetles (Pyrrhocoris apterus, or fire bugs), either because of their colour, or more likely in my view because they all hang around together idling in the sun. They were everywhere, and it was not at all clear what they were doing but the reference on Wiki (link) suggests that they eat lime seeds, and these colonies were close to two enormous lime trees. They are obviously very sociable.

even more things we haven't seen locally 5

A meadow fritillary, and a (?) Glanville fritillary (bottom photo). It turns out (according to my marvellous new butterfly reference book Collins Butterfly guide by Tolman and Lewington) that there are 46 species/sub species of fritillary butterflies in Europe, and they are very often hard to identify. So it could be a knapweed fritillary or a lesser spotted fritillary or ... but after a lot of counting of spots and examination of S sections we have made a decision!

a few things we have seen locally 1

Spot doesn't usually spend much time in his garden, but this year the peonies have relished the unusual warmth and this is his all time favourite.

And even more exciting is this insignificant looking little flower. It is the first time our english walnut has flowered since it was planted on Good Friday, 1999. Reliable sources report that walnuts do not mature for 10 years or so. They self pollinate, so maybe we will be eating our own walnuts at the end of the year...just like France.

a few things we haven't seen locally 4

and this is my favourite picture, a humming bird moth (aka macroglossum stellatarum, and one can see why ) drinking nectar from red valerian. These moths do sometimes make it across the channel, sometimes in large numbers but I have never seen one locally. Time to start planting some red valerian.

a few things we haven't seen locally 3

and a bee hawk moth on a clary (wild or meadow) of some sort

The flower appears to have closed around a visiting hover fly in the bottom picture, I guess to improve pollination.

a few things we haven't seen locally 2

and a bee orchid (ophrys apifera)

a few things we haven't seen locally 1

we are back from our holidays in the Charente region of France. As always the French country side was bursting with rare and wonderful sights. This is a lizard orchid, (himantoglossum hircinum), so named because the flowers are said (fancifully some would say) to resemble a small lizard with a long tail (the very long lower spur of their four lobed lower lip) although the close up of the flower does bear a passing resemblance to an escaping skink. And they smell like old goats, which is not dissimilar to Spot himself on a good day.

.

holidays

Spot is going on his hols for a bit, we'll be blogging again when he gets back. Have fun.

this year's first comma, along, all of a sudden, with lots of other species. It must be the warm weather.

working for a living

like a scene from the Auvergne, and just to prove we are very rural, a picture of one of my cousins (aka wolf according to Babe) driving newly shorn ewes and their unshorn lambs via Anvil Close to pastures new.

dragonflies and robins

the top two pictures are close ups of the a female dragonfly (broad bodied libellula) which is quite common around here but always impressive when you see one. The bottom picture is of some ragged robin and visitor. Usually there is a lot of ragged robin in the marshy meadows by the Inny, but this year it is very sparse.

more blue than green

the startling blue flowers of green alkanet, with the white eye in the centre, surrounded by the paler blue of field and germander speedwell.

more missed opportunities

the bright yellow flower of cow-wheat, with its peculiar collar of hairs like a fur stole, and favoured food of the heath fritillary (none seen yet this year) and below the pretty flower of bastard balm, favourite food of bees.

on the road today

hedgerow painting by Mother Nature, and below the mysterious innards of the comfrey flower. (Linnaeus, the great cataloguer and botanist, was famous for his interest in things scatological, and the interiors of flowers are really very lascivious, but it is hard to find anything meaningful in comfrey's latin name, symphytum officinale ....unless it is a subtle reference to, well only doctors and physiotherapist will know).

.

some speckulations

a young mistle thrush learning to sing (above), and a speckled wood butterfly resting after mortal combat with another male (they are very territorial).

sylvan settings

little stream running past New Mill and along Broadgate lane. Not sure what the red flower is but it looks like a garden escapee.

and the relic daffodil

one solitary multi headed white daffodil, surviving from when the meadows were used to grow daffodils many years ago. Again I like the sense of the meadow crowding in on this lone specimen. Diversity is everything.

and some orchids

marsh orchid (top) just coming into flower, and heath spotted orchid below. Sorry Carletta, we were 10 days too early. I like these photos because they hint at the tangle of life in the meadows.

common as blue

a nice close up of a common blue butterfly (male) sitting on a ragged piece of the head of plantain. This is a very petite butterfly.

hungry chicks

We had a crowd of juvenile starlings and their parents in the garden this afternoon. The juveniles are much lighter than their parents and bigger (at least fluffier) and very demanding.

long tailed tits

long tailed tits are small birds and are all tail, as this picture shows. They are very shy of humans but very sociable with each other going around in family groups chattering away (si si).

domesticated bugle

a pretty picture of domesticated bugle grwoing in our garden along with some Spanish bluebells, welsh poppies, elephants' ears and a saxifrage ... is there anything English in our Cornish garden?

early silver y

This is the earliest in the year that we have seen a silver y moth. They are usually immigrants from europe, and the spring invaders give rise to a second generation in the autumn. This moth flew in a swift and extremely erratic manner that was very difficult to follow.

Nocturnal visitors

Spot welcomes a hedgehog to the grounds of OH. This is the first hedgehog we have seen for a very long time and it is reassuring to know they are still around in our very hedgehog friendly garden (minus canine companions).By coincidence in the Spring edition of Wild Cornwall, the magazine of Cornwall Wildlife Trust, which has only just arrived, there is a request for sightings of hedgehogs to be reported to the Cornwall mammal Group (see link). So we have reported it and in doing so learnt our OS coordinates.

lanes of rivers

these images from the river Lynher below Golberdon today are very reminiscent of the lanes with their luminous tones of green. The midges are forming in great clouds as the day warms up.