July 31st 2009

This morning was very warm so the garden had quiet a few butterflies with 3 Peacock, 8 Large White, 6 Painted Lady, 2 Comma, Green-veined White and Gate Keeper all before 10am with Sparrowhawk, 2 Swift, and 4 Swallow overhead plus 23 Lesser Black-backed Gull heading west.
In the afternoon I met up with Dave for our Friday session at Draycote Water (hard to believe folks but no cake for me – I’m on a diet) and met up with Bob Hazell spending a great hour chewing the cud before we decided to give the country park a bashing for butterflies.
In just over an hour walking the perimeter of the top field we had another good count considering it was cloudier and windier than this morning.
Small Skipper 2
Common Blue 10
Small Copper 7
Comma 1
Painted Lady 96
Peacock 32
Red Admiral 1
Small Tortoiseshell 1
Gate Keeper 35
Meadow Brown 5
Speckled Wood 1
Green-veined White 1
Large White 171

Small Copper

Common Blue
We also managed to find 2 Southern Hawker and stumbled across a possible Azure Damselfly, 3 Silver Y, flushed a worn Dingy Footman and estimated the number of Udea lutealis (a mico moth) to be over 200 at least and met a very nice couple on there way back to Yorkshire. Surprisingly considering I have hardly seen any before there were hundreds of Ladybirds.

Udea lutealis by Bob Hazell - another cracking shot.
Looks like its cloudy and mild tonight with the odd shower so hopefully the moths might increase and my neighbours are letting me light up me garden up like Eddystone Lighthouse. Though last nights catch was poor again I did manage a Chocolate Tip.

Chocolate Tip - a poor shot considering I took loads - teach me not to check quality before releasing it.

Richard