butterfly news

just in time for the big butterfly count (see link) more species of butterfly are appearing; today in the meadows we saw large whites, small whites, meadow browns, ringlets, silver washed fritillaries, small skippers, and red admirals, in addition to the three above from the top a bright comma , a small copper, and a painted lady showing her under wear. No blues, tortoiseshells, brimstones or peacocks possibly because it was quite early in the morning.

a rare sight

We know that hedgehogs live in our garden but we only see them very occasionally at night. It is extremely unusual to see them ambling around in broad daylight like this one, completely unconcerned by our (four dogs and one person) return. The rain has brought out a lot of slugs so maybe this hedgehog was too busy snacking to notice the time of day.

in greenscombe woods

It was a warm sunny day but not much to see apart from cornish bladderseed and the strange slender variety of betony that is only to be found in these woodland meadows.

just like a leaf

the first of the second generation of brimstones to appear this year. The first silver washed fritillaries have also appeared in the last few days

five or six

the 3 main varieties of burnet moth are the five, narrow bordered five, and six spot. As far as I can tell this is the five spot (and only experts can tell the difference between this and the narrow bordered five spot). They are very striking in flight when they appear like a blurry ball of red (not black).

the middle  picture is of a heart and dart moth. The dart is the black streak, and the heart is the round brownish mark towards the edge of each wing. The bottom picture is of a silver y moth, a frequent migrant to Britain. The picture looks slightly blurred. This is because this moth has the habit of rapid trembling when at rest.

on the Inny

In the morning light the river looked like an impressionist painting today