more meadow pleasures 3 - Cornish fruit flies

and a brilliant small tortoiseshell (bottom), a wall brown (middle) nowhere near a wall but unusually still for this restless butterfly, and an odd shaped fly with a dog on its back (top).

10 August 2010

Thanks to my friends at Wild about Britain, this fly has been identified as chaetorellia jaceae, a fruit fly that lives on knapweed and related species and is used in other parts of the world as a form of biological control for these plant species where they have become invasive. As a group these flies have very elabotrate mating rituals, and often these sorts of colours to act as bayesian mimicry to put off their predators.

later on 10 August 2010

or is it Chaetostomella cylindrica ? This is the definitive fly for a dog's blog.

more meadow pleasures 2

he insects included these common blues (male and female) on meadowsweet, and a red admiral on knapweed

more meadow pleasures

the knapweed is out and makes a tangled carpet of purple interspersed with tall bunches of fragrant meadowsweet, red sorrel, and the brilliant yellow of bird's foot trefoil. All of these plants act as host to a wide range of insects and the meadows are full of a vast number of them, butterflies, moths, bees, hover flies, grasshoppers,crickets,all busily fuelling up for the serious business ahead.

fritillary mating

you may wonder why we have posted two blurry pictures but if you look closely you can just pick out two blurry orange blobs. These are male and female silver washed fritillary butterflies caught during their courtship dance. I have read about this, but today I saw it for myself for the first time. The male barrel rolls around the female while she flies along in a relatively straight line. If she is suitably impressed she lands and he releases pheromones from the linear scales on his fore-wings, and if she remains impressed they mate. It was so soul satisfying to see this private little ritual.

hoverfly wasps

and it is also that time of year again when wasps start causing a nuisance. This little chap is actually a hoverfly mimicking a wasp (otherwise thumb would not be so close)

more simple pleasures ...Stoke Climsland flower show 2010

In a pleasantly reassuring way the yearly cycle of our lives continues. Many hours of hard work and loving attention go into the annual flower show which although much smaller than many years ago is still well supported. Followers of Spot's blog will be pleased to know that several of the pictures from the blog did quite well in the photography classes. The top two photos show people getting their exibits ready (and tasting them it would seem), and the bottom photo shows the lunch ladies who work extremely hard in the village hall to get lunch ready for all the judges and stewards and organisers and dignitaries (of whom there are few).


and (one of ) the prize winners was ...

Royal William Yard

the imposing stone edifice on the other side of the water is the Royal William Yard, and in the background is Plymouth, and the hills of dartmoor.

blue tailed damselfly

common but very striking, this is a male blue tailed damselfly on some hemp agrimony, at Mount Edgecumbe this morning.

more simple pleasures ... parking

and of course the ubiquitous pleasure of finding a place to park

more simple pleasures ... vulture falconry

the show included a spectacular display of raptors, including a griffon vulture, bald headed eagle, a sea eagle and an eagle owl.


5 August 2010

and by way of a post script for Tara, an even closer close up of that American icon.
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more simple pleasures ... hound dogs

the hound dog show (plus expert audience)

more simple pleasures ... young farmers and ferrets

the tug of war used to be part of every country show along with numerous other demonstrations of physical prowess that have been banished for health and safety reasons (along with fun and joy).

Ferrets will be next on the list, but for the time being they are still allowed to race. Tail end Charlie (bottom photo) was quite endearing.



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more simple pleasures ... riding side saddle

dressing up in costumes and riding side saddle. The lady in red is dressed as a member of the women's first aid nursing yeomanry who were nicknamed inevitably "fanys" (do I believe this? but see Wiki link)

more simple pleasures ... goose herding

today we went to the Cornwall and Devon Countryman's fair at Werrington Hall. Although it was a cloudy day we enjoyed some unusual spectacles, including goose herding



duck and children training (supervised by collies)



and finally a goose and children race

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Small copper butterfly from the side (above) and a crowd of different folk (including a small copper as more usually seen) enjoying some yarrow. Are we in danger of becoming a bug blog? Cassie (Spot's dam) has suffered a major injury to one of her hind legs and her leg has swollen up like a barrel (apparently, so our vet David Ellis says, this is something that happens to greyhound lurcher people) but she has been grounded for a few days and thus we are not going for long walks. It brings to mind that she is 11 years old now and showing some signs of age. What will we do without her?

in the teeth of a dragonfly

it is usually very difficult to get up this close to a resting dragonfly, but this golden ringed dragonfly seemed happy to pose for posterity.

gamete exchange ?

does anyone know what these slugs are up to? (They are not eating, unless they eat paving stones)

more from the meadows

throughout the meadows were these webs which look like little strips of polythene wrapped around the heads of knapweed. I think they contain the young of the spider in the bottom photo, but I cannot identify the species from this photo (and trawling through the field guide to spiders is not for the faint hearted)

butterfly counting

It was British butterfly counting day today, so we went to our favourite meadow and walked through it for 15 minutes. The brambles have almost finished flowering, but the meadow is full of knapweed and in a few days will be a blaze of purple. Like last Sunday we saw many species, including three that were absent last week, the common blue, the peacock (top photo, very resplendent indeed), and the holly blue (bottom photo).This is only the second time in 5 years that we have seen and photographed a holly blue. There were ringlets, various whites and meadow browns beyond count, and a dozen large silver washed fritillaries.

rainbow martins

after a very very wet day, the sun came out this evening to add a little background colour to the aerobatics

formation flying

it's that time of year again when newly fledged swallows are trying out and developing their aerial skills like a squadron of jet aircraft doing aerobatics.

blackbird bathing beauty

even its mother wouldn't recognise this dishevelled mess of feathers as a blackbird

more purple and orange

today we saw 14 species of butterfly in one meadow :- ringlet, meadow brown, small heath, speckled wood, large white, marbled white, small white, comma (lots of them) silver washed fritillary, red admiral, small tortoiseshell, small skipper, small copper, and gatekeeper; admittedly all quite common but nevertheless that is about 1 in 5 of all our native species (and no blues). The photo above is of the very attractive small copper, and the photo below is of yet another purple flowering plant (less common than some of the others).

the Liskeard show 2

the warm up ring for horses and riders.

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a crowd of alpacas

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big bulls

donkey judging

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