I was doing a bit of work on the communal allotment before last night's extremely welcome rain and I noticed (a) blackfly on the otherwise thriving Globe Artichoke and (b) loads of ladybirds and their larvae on clumps of nettles. It seemed a good idea to bring these two sorts of insects together and I am hoping that the ladybirds had a feast.
The moths keep coming in goodly numbers though I gave the trap a rest last night, not wanting to black out our house with damp electrics short-circuiting. By contrast to the deluge, yesterday was gloriously sunny and I had a lovely time inspecting hosts of Marbled Whites and Ringlets on the generous field-edges up the lane which are full of wildflowers. I had not realised that female Marbled Whites have a delicious coffee-tinted underwing - when I saw the one in the picture, I thought I must have stumbled across an aberration. Still learning at 70, eh!
Wandering back, I took this not-very-good photo of a Comma out of simple affection because, every year, one patrols exactly the same 100 yards of the verge.
Here is another new moth for my list, albeit not a rare one. On account of its unexciting livery, I've probably simply failed to notice a Mottled Rustic before.
And here are a couple of Smoky Wainscots and a pair of fledglings illustrating the hazards of growing up near a house with lots of big windows. Both survived, I'm glad to say, but we do get too many fatalities and we're working on ways of improving things (while still allowing ourselves to see out).
3 comments:
Just a note but in the Smokey Wainscots make sure you don't miss a Shoulder Striped Wainscot. Smokeys haven't emerged here yet.
Hi Edward - many thanks! I think these are Smokys; they don't seem strongly-enough marked to be Shoulder-striped. But I will keep a lookout and maybe double-check with UTM At last we have decent rain here, lots and lots All vb M
I would agree it is just a reminder
Edward.
Post a Comment