31 Sunday Jul 2022
Posted in flowers, wildflowers
≈ Comments Off on Feeling the heat
Yellow is summer, sunshine, heat. Even before the record temperatures of the recent heat wave, walking through fields of these bright yellow (and orange) wildflowers was making me feel hot.
30 Saturday Jul 2022
Posted in insects
≈ Comments Off on Adelphocoris lineolatus
At last a bug with a common name – Adelphocoris lineolatus is also known as the Lucerne bug, though it actually favours quite a wide variety of food plants and, as you can see, I found it sitting on Common fleabane (Pulicaria dysenterica). This species is a little trickier to identify but its combination of paired lines and double spots helped me nail it down. As with yesterday’s mirid bug, records for this species are scattered and mostly to be found in southern Britain, though some adventurous individuals have been recorded in Scotland. (I have not identified the smaller bug in this picture – my photo didn’t show enough details and I suspect it might have fallen into the ‘too hard’ basket anyway.)
29 Friday Jul 2022
Posted in insects, wildflowers
≈ Comments Off on Oncotylus viridiflavus
High summer is prime time for spotting plant bugs. By keeping an eye out for insects on wildflowers, I’ve managed to spot three new (to me) species in the past week alone. This is one of them: a mirid bug with a mouthful of a name, Oncotylus viridiflavus. A lot of these bugs have very similar markings and can be tricky to tell apart but, luckily, this little guy has quite distinct colouration and patterning and, very helpfully, was sitting right where it should be, on top of its food plant, Knapweed. The records for this species are scattered throughout the southern half of Britain but there are a lot of gaps in the map – perhaps you can be the first to find one in your area.
28 Thursday Jul 2022
Posted in birds
≈ Comments Off on The Gadwall that thinks she’s a Mallard
Tags
birding, birdwatching, British birds, Cardiff Bay birding, Cardiff Bay Wetlands Reserve, comparison between Gadwall and Mallard, Gadwall, Mallard
It’s quite unusual for Gadwall to spend time at Cardiff Bay Wetlands Reserve and for them to be so confiding and so consistently in the company of Mallards rather than their own kind, so this little beauty may well be the same bird that visited the reserve back in March 2021.
Yesterday, she was puddling about right next to the boardwalk, which gave me the perfect opportunity to take some comparison shots with a female Mallard: Gadwall images on the left, Mallard on the right. Female ducks can be tricky to tell apart but you can see here that the differences in their body shapes are quite distinctive.
27 Wednesday Jul 2022
Posted in insects
≈ Comments Off on A side of Speckled wood
Before I became completely enamoured with butterflies, I mistakenly believed they – that is to say, each species – looked the same. I hadn’t appreciated that the patterns on their wings are like fingerprints, each one different, each unique.
26 Tuesday Jul 2022
Posted in mammal
≈ Comments Off on Passed on
Tags
This was one of three dead shrews I saw on Sunday’s walk around a local meadow. These tiny creatures live a fast and furious life so their death may have been from natural causes though I’ve never seen three on one day in one field before. I wonder if last week’s heat wave got them (for non-British readers, Britain recorded temperatures over 40 degrees Celsius last week for the first time ever). I found it intriguing, if gory, to see the ants clustered around the snout and claws.
25 Monday Jul 2022
Yesterday’s first tasting of this season’s blackberries nearly ended in disaster – not for me, but for this teeny weeny Dock bug nymph that was hiding on the far side of a berry but managed to scurry quickly on to my hand before I ate it. The berry was still a bit sour but at least it wasn’t crunchy!
*Note to self: always inspect the berries before eating them.
24 Sunday Jul 2022
Posted in flowers, plants, wildflowers
≈ Comments Off on An opulence of orchids
Tags
British orchids, British wildflowers, Broad-leaved helleborine, Epipactis helleborine, native orchids, orchid
I took these photos of Broad-leaved helleborine (Epipactis helleborine) ten days ago, on 13 July, and even then I had expected them to have shrivelled in the sweltering heat. Now, after the heatwave, I imagine they will have wilted, drooped, possibly died off completely but I will go back soon to check on them as they have such lovely flowers.
23 Saturday Jul 2022
Posted in flowers, insects, wildflowers
≈ Comments Off on Fives and sixes
Tags
5-spot Burnet moth, 6-spot Burnet moth, British wildflowers, Burnet moths, Burnet moths on pink flowers, pink wildflowers
There’s just something about pink flowers that Burnet moths find enticing. Whether they be thistles or Red clover or Knapweed, the 5-spots and the 6-spots seem to prefer them.
22 Friday Jul 2022
Posted in insects
≈ Comments Off on The day of the Gatekeepers
The gorgeous Gatekeeper may well be the last butterfly species to be added to my local list this year, unless I get particularly lucky and manage to spot something unusual. But what a fabulous finale!
