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