Well, it's been a memorable Midsummer Night and Day this year, starting with four hawkmoths on my hand (and there was another Eyed as well) and going on to embrace some lovely butterflies, orchids and even a kingfisher.
Here's the latter, perched on the ridge of our outhouse roof, up which it was clambering when I spotted it from our bedroom. What on earth could that flash of iridescent blue be? Surely not? But yes, it was. The first we've ever had in the garden (though they can be seen on the nearby river Cherwell and the canal). Sorry it's an awful pic taken from quite a way away with my iPad on maximum enlargement. But you can just see the blue.
The wooded verge of our local 'big field' has also entered on its period of summer glory; in a half-hour meander, I stalked these Marbled White and Common Blue butterflies and found the Pyramidal and Common Spotted Orchids shown above.
Happy times! Here are some hawk moth pics to end the day:
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| I love the streamlined Pine Hawk, a moth we never saw in Leeds |
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| Here it is again with its jet-plane sweep of wing |
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| One of two Eyed Hawks in the trap, revving up for escape |
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| And those whoppers, the Privet Hawks. I am siting the trap in our potato patch in the hope of attracting a Death's Head next |
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