Waxwing

Waxwing
"To see a world in a grain of sand,
And a heaven in a wild flower,
Hold infinity in the palm of your hand
And eternity in an hour."

From "Auguries of Innocence"

by William Blake

Sunday 26 August 2012

Garden Insects

The Big Butterfly Count has been extended to the end of August so I spent another 15 minutes in a sunny (for once!) garden this morning and managed to see a Speckled Wood and my first Red Admiral of the year.

A record shot of the Red Admiral - I was only able to take one photo as at the click of the shutter it was off - never to reappear!




Later on I also saw a Holly Blue, Gatekeeper and only the second garden Peacock of the year. Today has probably been the best day of the year yet for garden butterflies.

There were quite a few hoverflies in the garden - I think the species in the first two photos below (heavily cropped) may be Volucella pellucens which lays its eggs in wasp nests.







I found another Tree Bumble Bee in the garage this afternoon - now safely released!



and bees are being attracted to buddleia flowers



The wildflower "meadow" although now past its best is still attracting a lot of bees





and flies





And I found a Harvestman there last week



Sorry for the lack of posts recently. I have been out a few times but there were few photo opportunities. I went looking for a local Little Owl the week before last but failed miserably in my quest. I then decided to go to a churchyard nearby allegedly good for butterflies but as I arrived it decided to rain heavily!

We did have a fun day out driving round Leicestershire villages last week. Brian had one of those birthdays last year ending in 0 and one of his presents was a voucher for the hire of a Caterham 7 for the day. A rather lovely car - if one could just win the lottery.........





We had a nice pub lunch here



6 comments:

Rohrerbot said...

Hello there!!! Beautiful bugs today:) That's gotta be exciting finding new species in the garden. I saw one today here that I've never seen before.....I did a double take and got excited. Most people don't get it so it's contained excitement and outwardly, a smile:)

Sorry about owl search. I know how that goes. It's happened to me several times. Sometimes when I'm about to give up(like yesterday), a savior comes our way and then....bam! the owl is found. It's not that they move fast, but they sit so still on the branch that they are easily missed. It almost happened to us yesterday on this massive hike. We were in the area and about to give up when my other half saw the bird just several yards from my face. I can be so blind sometimes:) Hope you have more butterflies. I've been taking lots of moth and butterfly pictures for you and have more coming up. You keep snapping those pics. It's fun seeing what's on your side of the world:) All my best. Chris

Ragged Robin said...

Rohrerbot - Hi Chris - Sounds like you are enjoying your weekend hike :) Glad you found your owl in the end. I know what you mean about missing birds which are right under your nose! Whenever I persuade my daughter to come birding with me I see far more as, although she gets bored quickly so I look for birds in less time, she is superb at spotting things I would miss so I see more!!!!

Thanks so much for taking more butterfly and moth photos - I can't wait to see them :) Loved your tiger moth by the way and tales of Black Witch moth man!!!!

Keep enjoying your hike.

All the best Caroline

ShySongbird said...

That is a nice selection of butterflies etc, to see in the garden Caroline, the Red Admiral! is a beauty!

You seem to do well with those Tree Bumblebees, I still haven't seen one...well, I don't think I have :-) The photos of the hoverfly on the pink flower are lovely.

You must have both had great fun with that car and had lots of admiring looks I should think. Not sure it would have been so nice in the rain though :-)

Ragged Robin said...

ShySongbird - Hi Jan - I do seem to have hit lucky with the Tree Bumbles considering I hadn't seen one until earlier this year! I've seen a few in the garden and about 5 trapped in the garage. Not sure what is in the garage that they are so keen on! but all have been safely released :) Keep looking and I am sure you will see one soon.

It was fun in the car - luckily despite rain forecast at 2.00 it remained dry :)

Unknown said...

where youve put and bees are being attracted to buddleia flowers, its a drone fly

Ragged Robin said...

Chris Newell - Thanks so much for the correction - so many insects and so difficult to id!! Although I am making more of an effort to id them this year. Thanks again.