queen to be

it was a calm warm day, so the workers decided to release the queens and drones on the one flight of their lives. This queen to be hadn't quite mastered the art of using all four wings.

just jump, will you

this year's batch of young swallows getting ready to go

more meadow pleasures 5

the common blues have found each other,



and the red admiral is only included to show the beautiful contrast of colours

more meadow pleasures 4

second generation brimstones have suddenly appeared in large numbers, along with commas (much brighter/richer than earlier in the year).

late for pheasants

we set off a hen pheasant this morning, and much to our surprise we discovered that she had been sitting on a clutch of about a dozen eggs buried deep in the meadow vegetation. It seems very late for a pheasant to be laying eggs as the hunting/shooting season has just started. I hope she returns to her nest before too long. The dogs were very keen on trying them out.

crab spider

a crab spider (Misumena vatia) not very well disguised on some buddleia, waiting for some unsuspecting bee or butterfly to land. Apparently they can change colour at will, and are usually yellow and live on goldenrod. This one seems to have got it wrong.