A Silver Y in my Marigolds

 Went into my little stamp sized garden this morning, and immediately my attention was drawn to the planter where I repotted marigolds I bought from the local flower shop a couple of months ago. 

They've done very well, but they are fading now. Best £2.40 I've spent on plants. 

What I initially thought was a bit of dead flower on the edge of the planter turned out to be a sleepy silver y moth! It went and hid under the flowers for a little while, before coming out to sun itself on a flower head, fibrillating its wings as it warmed up, before flying off. 

However, before it did so, I did manage to get a decent photograph of this day flying moth. 

It was a busy day, flutterer wise. The top flowers on my buddleia are being visited by red admirals, and I found a small tortoiseshell sunning itself on my wall, leaving a very gothic looking shadow on the brickwork. 

I add in a few pictures from the library gardens yesterday too. We've had a couple of nice days since the hailstorm insanity earlier in the week. 

Si

All text and images copyright CreamCrackeredNature 14.09.24

Rare to see Colourful Butterflies this Year

 The weather we've had over the last few seasons, with so much flooding and wet weather around, certainly seems to have affected our butterflies for the worse. 

Not the high summer species like meadow brown, ringlet and small skipper - there's been plenty of those about - but the butterfly species that hibernate in their imago state that also tend to be the most colourful. Barely a brimstone, small tortoiseshell, peacock and comma to be seen in the spring, which has had a knock on effect on the butterflies seen in late summer. 

Hardly surprising!

However, I did come across this small tortoiseshell, a very vivid and beautiful one, that brightened up my day rather.

Si

All text and images copyright CreamCrackeredNature 09.09.24

Sconce Park Butterflies

 No cricket for me, as yet again the match I'd spent days preparing a team for an organising was cancelled by the opposition, officially due to overnight rain - the ground was bone dry at 10am - but more likely due to a severe case of couldn't be arsed-ness. 

Much disappointment for my team-mates and myself. We've only been able to play 5 games out of 11...

Si, in bright warm sunshine, I took myself to the park, to take in the open air, have a cup of tea, and photograph the plentiful butterflies that were around. 

A beautiful newly emerged comma would not co-operate, chased away from its perfectly posed spot by a marauding specked wood, but I managed to get some decent shots of other species - small tortoiseshell, holly blue and a rather tatty green veined white. 

I got a cup of tea, and settled down on my usual bench at the cafe to read. I've suddenly regained my love for reading which I seemed to lose during the pandemic, and take joy and peace in reading outside, be it at the park or in my garden in the early evening. 

So I was still able to make something positive out of a disappointing day.

Si

All text and images copyright CreamCrackeredNature 11.07.23

The Meadows of our Cricket Ground

 I have another match report to write up, but my brain just isn't up to it, so I will show you photos of the non-cricketing things I found during Saturday's match.

We are fortunate to have large areas of long grass and wildflowers that are acting as a home for various species of butterfly, bees and other insects. There are meadow browns, small coppers and small tortoiseshells always fluttering about among the buttercups, the meadow browns tucked right down amid the base of the stems. 

Ladybirds drift by like winged  spotty Volkswagen Beetles. 

Most players and spectators think I'm mad, but one guy did get it on Saturday. "Looking for nature mate?"

I would have been happy if he hadn't later stopped my nearly winning shot.

Si

All text and images copyright CreamCrackeredNature 15.06.22

Spring has Most Definitely Sprung

 We've had some pretty decent, if not spectacular, spring weather over the last few days, and although I've had the irritation of electrical work at my flat, I've been able to get out on the nicer days and see what's about. 

The first butterfly of the season has been spotted, but not a brimstone as is usually the case. It was a small tortoiseshell, and it was in the passageway at my flat, shivering on the ground.

I managed to get it onto my fingers, and move into the warm sun in my little suntrap yard. It fibrillated its wings for a while, something I always associate with this species, and then after gaining enough strength from the solar rays took off all of a sudden, easy as you like, and it was gone. 

I saw brimstones later on that same day; flying fast, never settling, lemon yellow males flying swiftly through the air. 

The hawthorn and blackthorn blossom is out in the park, forming the beautiful arch of flowers in the orchard as it does every year. Amid these blooms bumblebees were buzzing, the buff tailed queens now joined by white tailed bumblebees and a single red tailed bumblebee too now. I think there are a few workers around too, as I noticed several smaller bumbles around. 

When not feeding, other queens were searching for suitable nest holes on the ground to found their new colonies in. 

The chiff chaffs are singing now, but I haven't heard one yet. Teasing little birds, I've seen lots of photos of them out and about, and by heaven I've hardly ever seen one even though I've heard hundreds of them. 

I think they throw their voices so I can't find them. In fact I swear they do!

Si

All text and images copyright CreamCrackeredNature 15.03.22

An Unexpected Rescue

I was just returning from my afternoon walk, of which more later, when a flash of colour caught my attention on the path leading to my garden gate in the communal yard.

I was utterly gobsmacked to see a small tortoiseshell butterfly creeping along the flagstones.

Heaven knows what it was doing awake, as it was cold last night and hardly mild today, although it was sunny. I can only assume it's hibernation had been disturbed by something. 

The light levels were low, and it was scuttling just a bit too quickly to get good photographs alas, but I got a couple before deciding the best thing to do would be to rescue it and pop it in the clematis in the back of the yard to see if it could find a place to sleep. 

The months between now and May are the ones I love the most, as I track the arrivals of new flowers, insects and birds. But I really was not expecting a butterfly in January!

Si

All text and images copyright CreamCrackeredNature 17.01.22

 

How Vivid do you want it?

 Took myself off on a nice trip to Farndon, to have a good walk around and see what I might find at Cottage Lane Reserve.

The answer was, not very much. 

The tufted vetch that gives the reserve a feel of a bushy ocean in late summer was largely over, and red clover was the dominant plant in the meadow area, while purple and yellow loosestrife fringed the ponds in, er, purple and yellow. 

More yellow was supplied by a lovely second flight male brimstone that was feeding off clover. It's rare to see them settle for long, but this one took its time. Too far away to photograph however. 

Migrant hawker dragonflies were on patrol too, flying in those sinister zig zag patterns, always looking for hapless prey. 

OK, so, there was quite a lot to see really. I just didn't get to photograph any of it...

However, there were other beautiful things I found to show you. On the way out, I'd noticed that the red valerian outside the front of a sheltered housing complex was a bit of a butterfly magnet, and sure enough when I came back there were small tortoiseshells feeding off it, one of them pristine, the other so raggedy I was amazed it could fly. 

A marigold also provided the colourful backdrop for a bumblebee. 

Yeah! Let's turn that photo saturation up baby!!!

Si

All text and images copyright 26.08.21

A Dragonfly at Work!

 Our workplace has never been a particularly good place to photograph dragonflies, although you do the occasional brown hawker on the hunt over the wildlands that border campus.

Thus, in a week of relentlessly grey weather, to find one in the tended garden area at work was rather a surprise. A female common darter investigating the planters, and being pretty co-operative - indeed I find this species the easiest to photograph. 

The buddleia is still in flower, and usually when I walk past it, there is a small tortoiseshell having a feed.

Si

All text and images copyright CreamCrackeredNature 21.08.21

On the Buddleia

 If you want a plant that attracts pollinators and requires very little maintenance indeed, then buddleia is the one. A lot of the time it will grow whether you want one or not, and can be cut back to stumps each year and still come back bigger and stronger in no time.

Its sweet smelling flowers are a magnet for insects, and if you come across one on your travels, be sure to look at the flower heads to see who is visiting. It could be anything. 

Our small one at work seems to have some butterfly or other on it every time I walked past it. On this occasion it was a beautiful peacock, in A1 condition, that I somehow managed to get decent photos of despite the breeze. 

A small tortoiseshell proved more problematic, and sadly these photos aren't as good. But, they'll do. They are colourful, at any rate!

There's even a first shot for the year of a common blue on pennyroyal as a bonus.

Si

All text and images copyright CreamCrackeredNature 14.08.21