Small Tortoiseshell Butterfly

One of the few occasion when a butterfly kept still long enough to get the camera really close:



An uncropped photo taken with the Nikon Coolpix S9050

Red Admiral Feeding on Ivy

Anthocharis cardamines

or Orange Tip butterfly to you and me.

I was busily swinging the strimmer around some overgrown grass when this little beauty decided to land nearby. It seemed to take no notice of me photographing and only flew away when the four legged supervisor decided to walk past it.



It makes a nice change when the wildlife comes to me instead of me having to chase it.
A short piece of video:

Hello Vanessa

In spite of the temperature being 12.4C this Vanessa atlanta (Red Admiral butterfly) fluttered into view to rest and take advantage of the first period of Sunshine for several days.

Having a Flutter or Two

With the recent unseasonally hot afternoons I have actually seen a few butterflies.
In fact Lincolnshire recorded the highest temperature in the UK today.
It was some 6C above the seasonal average at around 23C. Alas it's not going to last.

A Red Admiral was good enough to pose on the Ivy



A Comma settled on one of the hanging baskets





Yesterday a Small Copper was feeding on a Dandelion in the back garden but its behaviour was more typical - flying off just as I got it in focus. At least the somewhat overgrown grass was dry enough for me to give it a trim. My garden is not what I would call large but my phone, which was in my pocket, indicated that I walked half a mile while mowing the grass.

A Tale of Two Coppers

I recently had to replace my whistling kettle. My old polka dot one had a whistle which, when boiling, rapidly increased in pitch until it was beyond my hearing. Unfortunately a few days ago I nodded off and didn't hear it. When I finally woke it was to the smell of singed metal. It had boiled dry and was well and truly blackened in the process. This is my nice, shiny, copper coloured replacement:



This one has a loud, strident whistle which I can hear.
I used to have an electric one which whistled as it switched itself off. Unfortunately the element gave up. When I replaced it the new one tainted the water with a strong 'plastic' taste, even after several boilings, so I went back to the type I could use on a gas ring.

The second copper of the week - a Small Copper Butterfly.





Since the very cold blast we suffered earlier in the year I haven't seen many butterflies, let alone those which stayed still long enough to photograph.

Comma Butterfly

There was just one solitary Comma among the scores of wasps on my Ivy today

A Frog and a Froghopper

The Summer display in my hanging baskets was well and truly over. The Fuchsias came to nothing. They stayed still at about 3 inches high. Fortunately the trailing Lobelia put on a really nice display. Though watered every dry day even they eventually gave up the ghost.

I emptied and relined the baskets then filled them with new compost ready, I hope, for a Winter and Spring display. Round the perimeter are trailing Winter flowering Pansies. Taking up the centre portion are bulbs; Hyacinth, Dwarf Iris (all those are blue) and Puschkinia libanotica (Russian Snowdrops) which have white petals with a blue stripe. I've not grown those before so we will see how they get on.

As for the garden wildlife. A couple of days ago I spotted a young frog on the path



This one was a bit larger than others seen recently so may be a two year old.

While I was troweling compost from the bag to a hanging basket what should decide to leap in to have a close look at what was going on? A common Froghopper (Philaenus spumarius)


 

Weird looking creatures.

Finally a butterfly landed in the garden.
A Small Tortoiseshell

 

A bit of a rare event here this Summer.

Yet More Admirals

This morning passing a different Ivy plant I counted fifteen Red Admirals feeding on it:







This plant is quite a distance from the one I photographed yesterday so I assume these are a different collection of Red Admirals. They seem to have a had a really good breeding season after several years when they were fairly scarce round here.

Admirals Galore

Gathering round one large growth of Ivy yesterday were over twenty Red Admiral butterflies:

Spots, Little and Large

Saturday was a day for spotting spots.
First was a Gatekeeper butterfly which obligingly settled on some pond plants for a while:



Both under and top of the wings have two little white spots in a black circle:






It was just the right weather for looking up as well as down.
Moving from the tiny to the ginormous:



As it came into view recently Sunspot AR2665, the largest seen this year, was observed to be growing rapidly. The dark centre is larger than the Earth.

A closer crop:




Gentle reminder folks: looking or pointing a camera or telescope straight at the Sun is a definite NO NO unless you are using a filter designed for that purpose. The Solar filter I use reduces the strength of the Sunlight something like 10,000 times to make it safe to point the camera at the Sun. I wrote about it here.

Holly Blue Butterfly

Just as we set off for our mid morning walkabout a flash of blue flew past us and landed on the ivy growing on the outside of my fence:





My luck was in as I rarely seem to see these settle long enough to photograph.
My thanks to Conehead54 for correcting my intial mis-identification of Common Blue.
This one is a Holly Blue.

All in all a glorious April day today.
Wall to wall Sunshine:
 

Maximum temperature 19.7C:


Sunday promises to be even hotter.

Early Flutters Feeding

Yesterday started cool but the Sun soon came out so I decided to trim some of the evergreens in the front garden. Pleased I had my trusty pocket Nikon with me as I saw some 7 spot Ladybirds:



Some bees enjoying a feed on the Heather:



But what caught my eye was about five Small Tortoiseshell butterflies on the Heather:

 



One looked very much well worn and tatty but the rest appeared pristine.

Gatekeeper

I try to remember to have the little Nikon in my shirt pocket when I am pottering round the garden. Fortunately I had remembered before I hauled out the garden hose to give my potted plants a good soaking. Out of the corner of my eye I saw a small brown flutter land nearby. Several seem to visit but rarely settle. Of course this one landed with wings closed and in a awkward spot to get a clear view without disturbing it:



Then it moved higher up but again with wings closed. At at least the viewing angle was better:



I had expected it to fly away but to my delight it stayed a while and opened it wings so I could take some better shots:





Eventually it moved on but only when the hose spray got too close for comfort. At least it stayed long enough for me to identify it as a Gatekeeper by its colouring and the twin white spots near the front tips of its wings.

Winged Wednesday

Before the rain arrived a few days ago the exceptionally warm weather had brought out many insects. Most were taking advantage of the Ivy plants which were in full flower. The flowers don't look much to us but bees, wasps, flies and butterflies were swarming around them.


 

Comma

Speckled Wood

Small Tortoiseshell

Common Darter

Always plenty of Crows and Rooks on the Cricket Field

Great Tit still roosting every night in the nestbox

Friday at the Flicks - Red Admiral Feeding on Ivy

Some weeks, like last week, there is plenty to video. Others there is nothing until the last minute, like this week. Until midday yesterday I had no new video clips when I spotted a Red Admiral butterfly on some Ivy near the bottom of the garden. I needed a camcorder with a powerful zoom so I dug out the Panasonic with its 70x optical zoom and, even though it hadn't been used for nearly a year, found the battery was still fully charged. I started filming trough the kitchen window and then gradually moved closer. Fortunately the flutter stayed for quite a long while. The only problem with the 70x zoom is some purple colour fringing round high contrast areas otherwise it does a decent job. The camera was tripod mounted so movement is the result of a breezy day.



I missed another opportunity to snap the Grey Heron this morning. Spotted it cautiously making its way to the garden pond but it noticed me and when I got it nicely framed as it took off - the camera refused to take the shot! Such are the frustrations of nature photography.

Have a great weekend observing the wildlife around you wherever you are.

Wall Butterfly and other wings.

Twice last week I saw a Southern Hawker dragonfly circling the pond. Every now and then it would disappear under the hedge next to the pond so I guess it was hunting for food. Unfortunately so far it hasn't settled for a photo session. While I was waiting, camera in hand, hoping for the dragonfly to land I spotted a butterfly on a flower. It was the first time I had seen any of the brown varieties in the garden so I took several shots before it disappeared.



I had to look up to see what had visited - A Wall Butterfly, Lasiommata megera. A female I think judging by the tiny white spot near the front wing tip.

During our afternoon walk yesterday I was lucky enough to capture a shot of a Common Darter dragonfly as it rested.



There are still plenty of bumble bees in the front garden. They are now spoilt for choice. Not only do they have the lavender plants but also the hibiscus which has come into flower.



Also being attracted are a few of the local wasps.



Visiting bird numbers are well down recently. They are able to find plenty of natural food. At least it means that my seed stock is lasting a decent time.

Minibeasts

When I was primary school teaching one of the things my class and I looked forward to was a day out of the classroom exploring the local countryside to see what insects and other small creatures were about. Then would come the task of identification and finding out about their life cycle and habitat.That was in the days before the National Curriculum when the teacher was able to decide what the children would learn, chose the best times to go about it and allotted the time needed accordingly.

Not too many minibeasts spotted here at the moment. At last I did find one Speckled Wood Butterfly taking a rest from flitting all over the place though it steadfastly refused to open its wings fully.



I am not sure whether this was a small beetle or a small fly which spent a couple of hours on the outside of the kitchen window. It made a change to get a blue sky as a background!



A Hoverfly taking a rare rest.



Here a Common Green Shield Bug which spent about six hours in the same position on the outside of the kitchen window. The only time it moved was to angle itself to catch the Sun when it eventually lit up that part of the window,



It wasn't until I enlarged the photos that I noticed that this little bug was missing two of its six legs.



All the above were taken with the Lumix TZ7. There are still scores of seven spot ladybirds about. The tadpoles in the nursery pond are coming along nicely.