Tag Archives: #365DaysWild

141/365 Marsh madness

21 Tuesday May 2019

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If it is possible to have a favourite butterfly (are they not all gorgeous in their own way?), then my new favourite butterfly is the Marsh fritillary (Euphydryas aurinia). I spotted my first just nine days ago, at Martin Down National Nature Reserve in Hampshire, and then saw nine more last Tuesday at the Aberbargoed Grasslands Nature Reserve here in south Wales. And today I returned to Aberbargoed and spent three wonderful hours wandering the grasslands, feasting my eyes on these magnificent creatures. Pure bliss!

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140/365 The battle of the Brimstones

20 Monday May 2019

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This female Brimstone butterfly is minding her own business, having a drink, and has no idea she is about to be tackled from behind by two male Brimstones.

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After some mid-air tussling, she lands on a leaf and seems receptive to mating but which male will get to do the honours?

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The males engage in an aerial battle, while she waits with closed wings.

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The dominant male lands next to the female and seems to try to force her wings apart.

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She opens her wings and you can almost see the glint in his eye!

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But, before he has time to mount the female, the second male returns to try his luck once more. The female closes her wings and the male tries again to force them open.

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Now both males are holding her wings down but they continue to battle over who is dominant.

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More male tussling follows, at which point the female gets fed up with waiting and flies off, the two males in hot pursuit.

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139/365 Common and blue

19 Sunday May 2019

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The colour of the day at Cosmeston today was blue: not only did I find numerous Common blue butterflies (I stopped counting at 25) but I also spotted several Common blue damselflies. And here they are …

190519 common blue male

A pristine male Common blue butterfly

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A no-less-pristine but not as blue Common blue female

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A male Common blue damselfly

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Don’t be fooled by the colour differences here – mature female Common blue damselflies can take three different colour forms: blue, brown (a yellowy orange) and the typical form, which is greenish.

190519 damsel common blue newly emerged male

And, just to confuse things, the males are usually a pinkish-purple when they first emerge and take a few days to acquire their true blue colouring. You can, however, tell they’re males by the solid blue colour of their two bottom abdominal segments.

133/365 Birding on Salisbury Plain

13 Monday May 2019

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Yesterday’s Glamorgan Bird Club trip to Salisbury Plain, RSPB Winterbourne Downs and Martin Down National Nature Reserve was amazing. The weather was stunning, the bird sightings were brilliant, as were the butterflies, and, as always, the company was wonderful.

190513 Salisbury (1)

The views from high on Salisbury Plain were lovely – we even had a distant view of the White Horse, though it was a little disconcerting being so close to the military impact area and to have the serenading of the plentiful skylarks occasionally shattered by the booms of exploding shells. The joy-riding trailbikers and off-roaders weren’t exactly peaceful either.

190513 great bustard

Still, we saw some amazing birds – I managed to spot the only Great bustard of the day (you’ll just have to believe me when I say that the head in the centre of the dip in the vegetation in the photo above is definitely a Great bustard!) and we had splendid ’scope sightings of Stone curlews and chicks at Winterbourne – both bird sightings were lifers for me. My best bird photo of the day was the Corn bunting shown below – captured out of the car window as we drove by.

190513 corn bunting

We also enjoyed some superb butterfly sightings – my first Small blues and Brown Argus for the year, and, finishing on a high, my first ever (two) Marsh fritillaries at Martin Down.

190513 marsh fritillary

130/365 Nesting update

10 Friday May 2019

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While I’ve been away in Kent, the Lesser black-backed gulls that are nesting on a rooftop behind my flat have been busy and one of them is now sitting continuously on the nest, which I assume means they have eggs.

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I’ve just been reading that their average clutch is 3-4 eggs, and both female and male take turns at sitting on the nest. The incubation period takes around 30 days so, if the eggs are viable and they continue with their parental duties, we should expect to sit some chicks poking their heads up in early June. Fingers crossed!

190510 LBB nesting (1)

It’s a bit hard to see the sitting bird so I cropped in on this shot to make it clearer

128/365 Pinks and blues

08 Wednesday May 2019

Posted by in 365DaysWildin2019, flowers, nature, spring, wildflowers

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Rain, rain, rain today but I managed to get out for a local bimble without getting too wet.

Due to the risk of rain damaging my good camera, I just took my point-and-click and, as there weren’t many insects braving the weather, the subject today had to be inanimate, in this case wildflowers, for no particular reason in shades of pinks and blues. Can you name them?

127/365 The red eye

07 Tuesday May 2019

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You all know how flash photography can sometimes make people look like they have red eyes – the effect can look quite devilish, almost evil. Well, in the case of this beautiful Collared dove, the red eyes are real and not at all devilish. I was working on my laptop when I heard the ‘coo-coo-coo’ and looked up to see the bird in the tree outside my living room window. I quickly grabbed the camera and moved slowly across the room to get a clearer shot, which is why the bird is looking at the camera, because it noticed my movement. It flew up on to the roof almost immediately but returned after a few minutes to shuffle its way around the tree looking for food.

124/365 A Throstle or two

04 Saturday May 2019

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Did you know the Song thrush was once known as the Throstle?

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It appeared as such in Thomas Berwick’s landmark birding guide book Land Birds back in 1797, the name was later standardised to Song thrush – makes sense when you listen to the great tunes it belts out – but, as recently as 1951, when he published his Collins New Naturalist volume Birds and Men, Max Nicholson was still arguing for the name to change back to Throstle. Song thrush or Throstle – which do you prefer?

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Regurgitating interesting titbits from Stephen Moss’s delectable Mrs Moreau’s Warbler: How birds got their names, Guardian Faber, London, 2018.

123/365 A Bramble confection

03 Friday May 2019

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Ingredients: 1 patch of Bramble, lashings of sunshine, a tablespoon of warmth, a dash of Springtime
Method: Stand and stare
Result: Nursery web spider, Dock bug, hoverfly (Syrphus sp.), Speckled wood butterfly, Green shieldbug, bee species, another hoverfly (Eristalis sp.), Harlequin ladybird, and wasp (Vespula sp.).