cat hunting butterflies

The painted lady butterflies are still in the garden. Hera our cat has taken to stalking them, but they are much too quick.

Painted ladies and rescued damselfly

5 painted lady butterflies were seen in the back garden. I walked down the side of the house and looked up the track and into the front garden and estimated 14 painted ladies in total.

The most I have ever seen in such as small area at one time. It was very windy and the butterflies were being blown about a bit.

Many moved to the back garden feeding on the red Valerian which was relatively sheltered by the flint wall. I counted 10 on the valarian at one time.

I noticed a damselfly larvae climbing up the pond grass. It had climbed about 2 feet up the plant, previous damselflies only climb just above the water level before slipping out of the larvae.

I watched for a while, waiting for the adult to emerge - it was windy and a bit drizzly. Suddenly the sun came out and by the time I got to look at the pond the adult had already started to emerge.

However, because of the wind all did not go to plan as the next sequence of pictures demonstrate. (All photographs taken through the glass of conservatory window so some are poor quality) I carefully encouraged the adult to cling onto a piece of grass and I carried it inside and put it on my desk, supported in a glass. It as far to windy to do anything out side.

The next sequence of pictures show the adult damselfly slowly drying out and changing from pale cream to its adult red markings.

About 2 hours after rescuing the damselfly, the adult had flown from the desk onto the door.

I carefully encouraged the damselfly onto my hand and took it out to the pond and encouraged it onto the plants along with the other adults that had emerged recently.

painted lady, silver y wing and juvenile spiders

I counted three Painted lady butterflies in the garden today.

You can see the proboscis of this one as it feeds. The butterflies were first seen in the front garden on the dog rose and then moved to the back garden feeding on the red Valerian and a white Hebe.
This one has piece missing from its wing.

Another spider ball, probably garden spiders, this time on the hydrangea

The wolf spider doesn't leave the survival of its brood to chance, the female carries the egg sac underneath her abdomen.

A perfectly camouflaged silver y wing moth.

This moth is another migrant from Europe although some may overwinter. This butterfly is very active at dusk and may be seen flying during the day.

Painted lady and mystery bird

The damselfly are emerging from the pond every day now. They climb up the stems of pond plant and then split out of their larval skin and climb up the stem to dry out before they are able to fly.
A painted lady butterfly visited the garden today.

When the wings are closed the painted ladies colouration was a perfect match of camouflage against stone slabs.


I looked into the distance and saw a sea gull mobbing another bird. This a behaviour that I observe from time to time when they dive bomb the sparrowhawks.

However, when I enlarged the picture I was unsure of the bird in question. It appears to be a bird of prey, any ideas? It looks a little bit like a red kite because of tail shape, redy/brown body and white underwing markings, but I may well be mistaken

swifts, house martin

The swifts are a delight to watch. They are nesting again under the eaves of our neighbours house. There appear to be 6 swifts visiting our neighbours house (there were three nests last year).

The swift is a superb flier and it even sleeps on the wing, high up in the sky! It is sooty brown colour, but in flight it appears black. The last couple of days they have been joined by a few house martins in the late evening. Swifts can be identified by their long, scythe-like wings and a short, forked tail.

Swifts are a summer visitor to the UK where it breeds It is most numerously in the south and east of the UK. Like the swallow and house martin, swifts spend the winter in Africa.

Early in the morning and towards dusk, the swifts scream low over our garden as they fly past our neighbours house. These screaming parties of swift career madly at high speed around rooftops and houses and streets. Our garden is higher than our neighbors and so they are very low when they fly across our garden. Their aerobatic skills are certainly a match for the red arrows!

Every now and then a swift will break away from the group and drop down, without making a sound and flying low it approaches our neighbours house and then flies up into the eaves.

Magpie eating a slowworm

I was attracted to movement on the roof of our neighbours garage. I was a magpie, soon joined by a second. It turned out that the magpie was eating a slowworm. I don't know if it was dead when the magpie found it or if it caught it alive.
The magpies do forage in the back alley, where I suspect the slowworm the cats catch also come from. Has anyone heard of magpie eating live slowworms. Magpies are of course part scavenger, but they are also opportunists.

Busy bees and baby spiders

With all the worry about declining bees I was pleased to see so much bee activity in my garden. Decline of bees is a real concern, particularly because of the important role as insect pollinators of both flowers and commercial crops.

Honey bee

Buff-tailed bumble bee, with visible pollen baskets on its legs

Red tailed bumble bee (these flowers seem to be most popular at the moment. Its interesting to see how the bee activity and species changes as different flowers come into season).

Buff-tailed bumble bee in the yellow flags on the edge of the pond. The anthers are in the top flap of the flower which rubs along the bees back as it enters the flower.

This is the first time I have noticed so many bees visit the yellow flags, hopefully not a sign that there are fewer flowers to visit locally. This picture gives the impression that the bees were so busy they were queuing up for the flowers (of course this was not really the case).

A large colony of tiny spiders on our front gate, that had recently hatched nearby. It these first few days, when disturbed they form a tight ball. They are probably juvenile garden spiders.