Saturday 21 May 2011

Saturday 21st. May 2011

Before heading out this morning , I went down the garden to photograph another of Carol's pride and joys , an almost white Iris . It was only when I got close up , I noticed two Crab Spiders on the said 'pride and joy' , one a normal white/cream colour , and the other , one that I have not seen before .
When I got out , my first stop was at the Farm Lake , and the early morning sun had many insects warming up , the highlights of the visit being ,
Azure Damselflies , like this male in good numbers ,
one of the Plume Moths , I think it might be Amblyptilia acanthadactyla , but as normal , I stand to be corrected ,the Moorhens have decided on a nest site , and the first eggs have been laid ,again this year , the Southern Marsh Orchid as appeared ,the Salad Burnet/Sanguisorba minor , a member of the Rose family , is in full flower ,I was surprised to find a Field Scabious/Knautia arvensis , a member of the Teasel family , already in flower ,another sighting of a moth identified by Dean , I hope I've got this right , as Epiblema (possibly cirsiana) , but this time mating ,as an example of how difficult it is to identify newly emerged damselflies , how about this one . If it wasn't for segments 8&9 being clear and the 'golf ball on a tee' marking just behind the thorax , would we have put Common Blue Damselfly forward ?Once again I found Black-tailed Skimmer larvae on land , this time on the pebble beach where the boat is hauled out ,it was struggling in the now warm sunshine , so after a photo call , I put it in the shade of the vegetation at the top of the beach ,A Broad-bodied Chaser , in the process of changing from immature to mature male , 'bluing up' was also found ,Apart from 2 Speckled Woods , the only other butterfly recorded was this posing Green Hairstreak ,as I was about to leave , the Blue-tailed Damselflies started to come out to warm up .
I then headed to High Elms , but stopped briefly to see how the House Martins were getting on at Keston . The sky was alive with them feeding , and it looks as if at least 10 nests have been refurbished , and I think a couple of them at least have young already , from the number of visits back to the nests .
The full butterfly transect was the last thing of the morning , with the hope of finding my first Meadow Brown of the year , but it wasn't to be , surprising as most other species have emerged early . 10 species did make it into the book , once again most numerous being Common Blue (21) , followed by Dingy Skipper (11) , really living up to it's name , but I have been recording it for over 4 weeks now .All of the Orchids found were suffering badly from the lack of rain , like this Fly Orchid , which was lying almost horizontal . The Birds-nest Orchids and the White Helleborines seemed happier in the shade of the woodland .

4 comments:

Warren Baker said...

Nice to hear of some House Martins Greenie, I like the shadows they cast on the wall

Anonymous said...

You`ll not need me anymore now, Greenie. I agree with your moth id`s.

A very busy day by the looks of it.

Ken. said...

Hi Greenie.
First of all I would like to say that you photo's of the Glanville Fritillary from a few days ago are terrific. That is another butterfly that I have never seen.
As for today, what a lovely variety of wildlife shots, great White Iris. So much seen in one day, something for everyone, whatever your in to.
I wil have to try to catch up with these Odanata that I am missing.

ShySongbird said...

Carol's frothy white Iris is a beauty!

I love the photo of the Green Hairstreak.

I am not surprised the Orchids were suffering, I have never, ever known it so very dry at this time of year. It is getting quite worrying now. We have flowers going over in our garden which shouldn't even be out until early June!! Your Field Scabious seems to be behaving in a similar way.

Glad the House Martins are doing well!

Not sure how I missed commenting on your last post, I definitely read it. Lovely photos and enjoyable update on the GSWs.

Sorry to read Carol is still suffering with her foot, these things do take a long time to heal. I turned my ankle about 18 months ago and it took months to heal properly, not long after it had I managed to do it again :( So tell Carol not to lift any more slabs!