Emperor Dragonfly and egg laying speckled wood

Another hot sunny day. I noticed a large Emperor dragonfly darting to and fro in our neighbours garden, occasionally crossing into our garden. It was probably hunting for flying insects which this species catches in flight, often patrolling an area. The dragonfly was around in the same area for much of the afternoon. There are many flying insects around the large tree that overhangs our garden and the dragonflies patrol was centered around this area.

I noticed a second speckled wood butterfly laying eggs on the long grass next to our lawn. For first observation of this see 8th August 2009.

Egg-laying speckled wood and blue butterflies

As we only have a very small garden we have not been able to create a meadow garden as we would have liked. We do let the clover and other small flowering plants remain in our lawn. We also allow some of the lawn edges, where they are bordered by shrubs, to grow uncut. I was really pleased today to see a speckled wood butterfly laying eggs on the long grass at one corner of the garden.


Egg on grass

The garden was also visited by two of the blue butterflies. A female common blue (below) the females have brown upper wings tinged with blue with a fringe of orange spots.


This Holly Blue (blue) was actually photographed just outside our garden on the track where it settled.