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.
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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.