Butterflies on the Run

It was a grim day yesterday, but today for my first day off the sun was out, and I headed out along the owl road, loving seeing all the butterflies I'd missed in the spring. Lots of ringlets and meadow browns are out along the cycle path, and wherever there are thistles, there are small skipper butterflies making the most of that sweet Scottish nectar!

However, they weren't the only flutterers enjoying a good drink today...

Bonus new friend walking home last night

Back to today, and rosebay willow herb seems to be in flower

Sadly the glorious poppies have faded away

A vetch type flower out on the cycle path

Small skipper, sadly not best focus

Small skipper on thistle

Soldier beetle love.

Small tortoiseshell

Beautiful colours, a beautiful show

Plenty of them now up

Bohemian cuckoo gets in on the act

Skulking meadow brown

Large white

Pretty tiny flowers at Devon Pasture

More Garden Colours to Paint Upon my Brain

After long days in work sometimes just lolling in front of Doctor Who repeats - tonight it's "Genesis of the Daleks" with Tom Baker - feeling like your squandering your mind, you need to get outside in the garden and paint your cortex with colour, and to head out on bicycle or in running shoes and take the evening in, and enjoy the world for a bit.

I did so last night. And I fully intend to do so again shortly. I really hope I'm not sounding like a particularly pretentious "lifestyle" blogger. I'll be eating quinoa and artsean bread at this rate.

Si

All text and images copyright CreamCrackeredNature 07.07.15

The Prince Upon the Cycle Path

I've been playing cricket again today.

Your actual proper cricket this time, not messing about in the nets or having a few gentle throw downs. A match, on a glorious afternoon. I'd bowled and batted well at nets the other day, so I was hopeful.

And of course, in the end I was dreadful. Scored 1 run, fielded badly and my bowling was all over the place. We got hammered out of sight, and thus I had time to ride out on my bicycle.

I was just scudding along, when a scuttle interrupted my scud in front of me, and I had to do a little swerve and stop.

It was a little toad, about quarter sized, just making its way across into the deep long grass to look for worms, probably. It was very well behaved, and it occurred to me that if I kissed it a prince,  a better cricketer than me would suddenly appear. The team, oh by golly, definitely needs one.

It then occurred to me that there were people around, so I didn't. We'll just have to lose again next week.

Si

All images and text are copyright CreamCRackeredNature 04.07.15

Actually, it's probably a princess

A prettier face couldn't be seen

Just ambling along

Red tailed malel was rather busier

Fresh out in the garden

Another Run to Winthorpe Lake

Well, there was a bright sun, but there was a nice breeze and temperatures weren't too fierce, so another longer distance so-called "adventure run" seemed a much better idea than it did when I ran 12km in 33 degree heat a couple of days ago, for idiotic reasons of machismo.

It's a pleasant trip out there, through pretty Winthorpe village and the cottage on the level crossing that has loads of house martins nesting in it, and then onto the Trent Valley Way up to the lake.

I've often decried the lake at Winthorpe as being a rather sterile place, maintained solely for the purpose of fishing. And in some ways, it is. But today, the thistles had been allowed to grow wild and tall, and all sorts of life were taking advantage.

There were my first common blue and blue tailed damselflies of the year, both of them silently flying like tiny neon lights and being as ever impossible to photograph with a mobile phone. There were large skippers too, with their wings like furry dart flights.

Meadow browns and ringlets were also plentiful, as were a few gatekeepers. You may remember me writing yesterday that this attractive golden butterfly wouldn't be around for a few weeks yet; I guess my lack of knowledge has been effortlessly exposed.

For not only were they up, they were actually posing for photographs for me! They never do this, they are normally pretty elusive, irritatingly aware of knowing when to fly off just as you press the camera button. Evidence of my ignorance can thus be posted for your amusement.

I just wish I hadn't run home part the sewage farm.

Si

All images and text copyright CreamCrackeredNature 03.07.15

The martin colony

Trent Valley Way

Winthorpe Lake

Usual terrible damsel shot

An even worse one of a blue tailed damsel

Large skipper

Beautiful male gatekeeper

The well known concrete barge at the lake

River Trent on the way home

This is a good caterpillar. A bit of a google makes me think it might be a peacock

The "other" lock

Kayak fisherman

Polish flowers!

Her garden is a riot of colour today

These lilies are stunning

The Burnet in the Thistles

I went for a butterfly hunt this afternoon, and I found them too.

The long uphill drag from Clay Lane to Beacon Hill has now erupted in thistles at its lower end, with a suffusion of yellow flowers I decided to call yellow rattle, although that's not what they are. Bumblebees are loving the thistle flowers! Maybe that's where my nesting tree bumbles have gone, because the buzzers above my door are now absent and the familiar faint fuzzy taps on my living room windows have now ceased.

There were other newcomers too, for the velvet brown ringlet butterflies have now taken to the air, white fringed. So two of the three classic high summer grassland species are now up, the meadow brown and the ringlet. Later this month, the orange gatekeepers will be with them.

The little fritillary like months I found last year on the hill I couldn't locate, but in Beacon Hill reserve I found the treats of the day. Firstly there were the familiar little red soldier beetles, mating pairs flying in the act of love. And then further around in another patch of thistles, a flash of red caught my attention. It was the first 6 spot burnet moth of the year, swiftly joined by another.

As ever, I chased them round the purple flower heads with my mobile phone and managed to get a couple of OK shots. The one thing that always fascinates me about this species are the fabulous little curly antennae. 

They are like how a child would draw a ladybird's antennae, I always think!

Are there any up where you are?

Si

All images and text copyright CreamCrackeredNature 02.07.15

Red tail caught in the act of escape

Urban farm

Lazy shepherd takes 5

Worker red tail on thistle

Remind me someone! Cos it aint yellow rattle

White tail bumble

There you are!

Like a gothic vulcan bomber

Two for one in this shot

A glimpse of underwing

Venus and Jupiter at Conjunction

If you look lowish in the west now, or the next couple of nights, you will see the very bright so called "Evening Star" Venus, and the rather fainter Jupiter, sinking together into the twilight like lazy celestial lovers. I was watching them last night, along with a roosting jackdaw.

Astronomical events are so beautiful, free to look at, and unlikely to be marred by hooligans. 

Other night-time activities to look out for are the increasing numbers of pub moths I'm starting to see battering themselves against lit windows or hiding up in the pub rafters, and the number of swifts about, which seems to have tripled with the heatwave. I've just been out at 10pm, and there are still loads of them up there even after sunset, screeching their heads off.

Think I will encounter bats tonight.

Si

All text and images copyright CreamCrackeredNature 01.07.15

Riband wave fancies late night chips

Crow watches conjunction

Closer view

Burnt out grey arches

Double top!