Orange Tips and Orange Pykett's Wood

After having a well earned day off running yesterday, I was back in training for my hypothetical attempt at the Robin Hood Marathon in a few months. I did 11km give or take along the Owl Road route, which was bright and dry, but with hardly a splash of colour.

Having done a lap of the pond on Cotham Flash and flushed some small ducks high into the sky, tufties I'd say, rather than head for Hawton straightaway, I crossed the road and ran through Pykett's wood, which was thickly carpeted in orange dandelions making up for the earlier lack of hue. Peacocks and small tortoiseshells were making use of these plants, just coming into "clock" some of them, and brimstones too.

Earlier, on the Sustrans 64, I had seen my first orange tips of the year, flying at about the same speed that I was running, patrolling hedgerows as is their usual habit. Along with the clouded yellow, these seem to be the hardest butterflies to photograph I've encountered. I've at least got a couple of great pictures of brimstones! I've never shot a clouded yellow, and my orange tip pictures are rather more orange blur.

Plenty of bees about too, spikily flying flower bees, bumbles of various shades, and solitary bees of differing species.

I trust you are all seeing plenty of life as the weather warms up this week!

Si

Cemetery magnolia still in fine shape

Primrose carpet along the ditch has rarely been so thick

Forget me nots and other colour splashes

First dandelion clock

The chapel

Cotham Flash pond

Oil seed rape now in full bloom

Dandelion carpet in Pykett's Wood

They've taken a rich crop of poplars by the look of things

River Devon

The lungwort is fading, but further along that Hawton wall is thick with this stuff

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Honey bee on currant flower

Hoverfly, I think, judging by the eyes

Pond digging in Devon Pasture

Under the bridge

Drone fly in my garden appears to be a honeybee clone