Holiday Snaps – Part 2

It occurred to me as I wrote this that blogging is the modern day equivalent of boring your friends and family to death with a slideshow of your holiday pics – only with blogging you get to inflict them on a much wider audience! So apologies for indulging here and sharing more photos.

So just to prove that we do occasionally look at other things besides butterflies and moths, here are some of the best of the rest. The cottage we’d rented was on the edge of a nature reserve, so we were off to a good start without even going anywhere. There was a path leading own to the nature reserve’s lake (Hawes Water) and it was obviously a bit of a thoroughfare for a lot of wildlife. The trail cameras picked up what I think is a female Roe deer both at night and during the day, plus it was nice to see a hedgehog at dusk too.

 

The lake itself had plenty of damselflies buzzing around our little jetty. I identified at least 2 species – Azure (below top) and Blue-tailed (below middle – female, bottom – male), both beautiful insects.

Not exactly wildlife, but it was also nice to have a family of Gloucester Old Spot pigs in the field opposite the cottage.

Venturing out from our cottage we visited some amazing sites. Irton Fell, which we’d gone to primarily for the Mountain Ringlet, had plenty of other wildlife too. Despite the windy conditions up there, there were plenty of insects around including these 2 species of Tiger beetle.

There were lots of small birds flitting between rocky outcrops and fences. Bird ID is not a strong point of mine, but I think these are Stonechat and Skylark.

On our last day, freed from the need to search for butterflies, we went to Foulshaw Moss Nature Reserve. Foulshaw is known for it’s Ospreys. Technically we did see them, via a webcam set up on the reserve. They’d got chicks which we could just about make out on the monitor. The nest was a long way from public footpaths (and rightly so), so no chance of photos – but it’s still the closest I’ve ever been to an Osprey, so it felt like a win.

Foulshaw was also known for a species of dragonfly that would be new to us too – the White-faced Darter. There were a few flitting around, but none were settling. One finally landed in front of me on the boardwalk. I managed a quick record shot, planning to then zoom in for a better one. Just got it focused and a small child ran up and scared it off – I may get over this eventually! So here’s the poor record shot.

So here endeth our holiday snaps. A couple of lifers (Ospreys & Darter) ticked off the list if not photographed properly and a few other favourites seen again. Our holidays tend to be primarily wildlife focussed, but just to prove we do manage a few other activities, here’s me doing the inevitable pose next to Eric Morecambe’s statue at Morecambe Bay.

 

Norfolk Dragonflies

It seems a bit like a lifetime ago already, but in June we had a fantastic holiday in Norfolk. Although the species we were most keen to see was the Swallowtail butterfly, we made the most of the opportunity to see as much other wildlife as we could. One of the groups that we saw in abundance was the Odonata – the dragonflies and damselflies. In total we saw 9 species, 6 of which were new to us. I’ve been very lucky to have help identifying them all from a very friendly and helpful group on Facebook called UK Dragonflies & Damselflies.

We lucked out with our holiday let – a lovely house in Wroxham on the banks of the River Bure. Our holiday garden ran right down to the river with its own inlet for mooring boats (with our complete lack of boating skills we weren’t brave enough to have our own boat!). The area was positively alive with dragonflies and damselflies, so we could just sit and enjoy them without having to go anywhere. We saw 5 species in the garden alone.

One we had seen before, but which is still a delight every time we see it, is the Banded Demoiselle.

demoiselle drakes

They’ve got a lovely way of flicking their wings open and shut when they are resting.

We’d also seen Common Blue Damselflies before, although they’re not a species we get in the garden at home, so it was nice to just chill and watch them.

common blue damselfly male drakes

Red-eyed Damselflies were new for us and were probably the most abundant species at our holiday let. The males, as the name suggests, have vivid red eyes, with a blue body and blue tip to the tail.

red eyed damselfly male

The females don’t have the eye colour and are also more of a greeny body colour

red eyed damselfly female drakes

The red-eyed damselflies were mating all over the place, but their favourite romantic rendezvous were the water lilies. They were literally queuing up for a turn on the lily flowers. If you look closely you can see that some pairs are actually submerged, seemingly undeterred in their eagerness!

red eyed mating

There was also a 3rd species of damselfly in the garden – the Blue-tailed Damselfly. The males have a light blue spot near the end of the abdomen, but somehow I didn’t manage to get a photo of a male. The females are more interesting though in that they have at least 5 different colour forms. There seemed to be at least 2 of these forms flitting around the garden – the top one below is the more typical colour and below that is the rather grandly named “rufescens obsoleta” form.

female blue tailed

female blue tailed damsel - rufescens obsoleta

There were quite a few of the larger dragonflies about the garden, but the only one we managed to photograph was the Black-tailed Skimmer. This immature male rested nicely on the bushes to get his photo taken.

Black tailed skimmer immature male drakes

The males start of the golden colour as above, but when mature they turn blue, with a blackened tip to the abdomen – like this one we saw at Hickling Broad.

black tailed skimmer male 2 hickling

Having the river on our doorstep meant that when we got up in the mornings, we were lucky enough on a couple of occasions to spot dragonflies emerging from their larval stage. This first one is another Black-tailed Skimmer – a male (thanks again to the FB dragonfly people for identifying this). We missed the initial breaking out of the exuvia, but got this sequence of photos.

Black tail skimmer emerging 1

Black tail skimmer emerging 2

Black Tail Skimmer emerging 3

We also managed to catch on video the moment he opened his wings for the very first time – quite a privilege to see!

We did catch another dragonfly actually bursting free. It never ceases to amaze me how they expand into such huge insects out of such relatively small larvae.

Dragonfly 1 emerging 3

Our adventures out and about in Norfolk took us to various nature reserves with more dragonfly delights. At Hickling Broad we glimpsed this Hairy Dragonfly. Not a great photo but another new one for us.

Hairy dragonfly Hickling

Also at Hickling Broad we saw this gorgeous Four-spotted Chaser – so named for the spots on his wings.

Four spotted chaser Hickling

At Strumpshaw Fen we were graced by the presence of a Scarce Chaser. They are as the name suggests “scarce” and in fact are classified as “near threatened”, so it was a lucky spot.

scarce chaser strumpshaw

Star of the show though was the Norfolk Hawker. We saw them at Hickling Broad, Horsey Mere and Strumpshaw Fen. The Scarce Chaser may have been scarce, but the Norfolk Hawker is actually considered to be endangered and one of the rarest dragonflies in the UK. They are stunning dragonflies with green eyes, brown bodies and a yellow triangular mark at the top of the abdomen.

Norfolk hawker horsey

We even caught this pair of Norfolks doing the best to ensure that they became just that little bit less rare!

Norfolk hawkers mating hickling

So that’s 9 species of dragon/damselfly seen in a week without really even trying! A few years ago we started on a quest to see all the British species of butterfly and only have 5 to go on those. I think we may just have found the next group to focus on – and Norfolk has given us a great start already.

2020 – The Year of the Pond

Well there are probably lots of ways to describe 2020, but most of those aren’t repeatable on what tries to be an upbeat blog. So I will gloss over the obvious and instead try and focus on the many good things that happened in the last year.

First and foremost was that we finally managed to put in a new pond. The timing for this couldn’t have been better – the pond went in during February and of course in March we went into lockdown. Having the pond to sit by and watch develop through those long months was a real sanity-saver. It was amazing how quickly the wildlife moved in and as it matures I’m sure it will only get better.

A real highlight and sense of achievement came at the end of May when George, the Eyed Hawkmoth I’d reared from an egg, finally emerged. I’d been nurturing him for 10 months since I’d found the egg in the moth trap and so I felt like a proud mum when he emerged and flew off into the night. Hopefully there will be sons and daughters of George in flight this summer too.

Another moth related achievement was the creation of our Moon Garden – an area planted specifically to attract moths. And it worked. 39 new moth species were recorded, bringing the running total for the garden to 405. Best of all it attracted a Dark Crimson Underwing – believed to be the first record for this species for the whole of the West Midlands.

2020 turned out to be a good year for butterflies too. Between lockdowns, we managed to add 2 more species (Silver-spotted Skipper and Black Hairstreak) in our mission to see all the British butterflies. We also noted 2 new species for the garden (Silver-washed Fritillary & Brown Argus), although this was more by luck than good management.

The new bee hotels provided lots of interest and again we added 2 species to our garden count (Willughby’s Leafcutter and a Sharp-tailed Bee). Being able to watch both Red Mason & Leafcutter bees build their nests in the tubes was really fascinating.

Despite lockdowns, we still managed to take part in various citizen science projects – including Big Butterfly Count & Garden Moth Scheme. A new project this year is the Slugs Count project.  This is a monthly survey of the garden for slugs and it’s been great (trying) to get to grips with a whole new group.

As I do every year, I’d made various wildlife resolutions at the start of 2020. Of course back in January none of us had any idea of how the year was going to turn out! Not surprisingly the Covid imposed restrictions had an impact on some of my resolutions, but at least this year I’ve got a really good excuse for not completing them all! So here were last year’s targets:

  • New pond – well at least we smashed this one. Many thanks to Gwyndaf the Cycling Gardener who was the one who did all the hard work digging, while we sat back and reaped the rewards.
  • Create a Moon Garden. I think we pretty much nailed this one too. The Moon garden was a big success both aesthetically and for the moths.
  • See 2 more species of British Butterfly. For a while it seemed touch and go whether we would achieve this one. Our planned trip to Norfolk to see the Swallowtails was of course cancelled, but in the end we did manage 2 other species (always good to have a plan B). So we’ve now seen 52 of the 58 species.
  • Visit 5 new nature reserves. I think we only managed 2 new ones (Glapthorne Meadows and Aston Rowant NR), but then many of the nature reserves were closed to the public during the lockdowns, so I figure we have an excuse.
  • Go rockpooling. Had hoped to do this one in Norfolk, but of course that went out the window. Not much scope for rockpooling in Worcestershire, so this one will have to get bumped to next year.
  • Go and see some wild Ospreys. Again we were thwarted by Covid. I had hoped to go up to see the Dyfi Ospreys, but for a large part of the year we’ve not been allowed into Wales!
  • The moth tattoo! I genuinely thought this would be the year I’d get a moth tattoo – I’ve even decided it should be of George the Eyed Hawkmoth. But of course tattoo parlours were one of the first things to get closed down – so that’s my excuse at least.

So to New Year’s Resolutions for 2021. Covid may continue to thwart our efforts, but we can at least hope to enjoy as much wildlife as possible.

  • Try and video a dragonfly emerging from the pond. We had lots of dragonfly/damselfly egg laying activity in the new pond last year, so hopefully I can catch some of them emerging in the summer.
  • Expand the moon garden – it’s been great so far, but I’m hoping to double the area.
  • See 2 more species of British Butterfly. We’ve now seen 52 of the 58 species, but we’re having to go further and further afield to see the remaining ones. Fingers crossed we can see the Swallowtail in Norfolk at least this year.
  • Visit 5 new nature reserves.
  • Rockpooling. Again fingers crossed we make it to Norfolk for this.
  • Go and see some wild Ospreys – if we’re allowed back in Wales!
  • The moth tattoo!

If 2020 has taught me anything it is that I am very grateful to have a wildlife filled garden and that I am lucky it brings me so much pleasure. It must be awful for those who didn’t get the chance to enjoy wildlife this year, but then I think it would be awful in any year not find joy in the nature that is all around us if we take the time to look.

Damsels & Dragons – Part 3

I knew as soon as I posted the last dragonfly update on the pond that it probably wouldn’t be the last and sure enough over the last month or so there has been plenty of dragon activity in the garden.

The darters have continued to be the predominant dragonflies at the pond, but with a new addition – at least one Ruddy Darter.

Very similar to the Common Darters, there may well have been more than one Ruddy visiting, but unless they sit still enough to get a decent photo, I find it hard to tell them apart.

The Ruddy ones have all-black legs (left), whereas the Common ones have a dingy yellow streak down the legs (right).

 

 

 

But it’s impossible to see any of that when they are flying. And they’ve been doing a lot of that, often paired up and laying eggs together. Unless they pause and rest, I’ve no idea whether it is Ruddy or Common pairs I am watching. This pair did take a bit of a break, with the male seeming to have made himself comfy on the perch, while leaving the female clinging on for dear life! (I’ll refrain from commenting on a woman’s lot!)

They flit around the pond, laying eggs with a dab of the female’s abdomen in the water. They are very hard to either video or photograph as no sooner have you focussed than they’re off across the pond. So apologies for the shaky video and fuzzy photos. The male holds onto the female at the back of her head using claspers at the end of his abdomen.

 

They then fly in tandem around the pond depositing the eggs. The eggs are just laid apparently at random in the water, rather than being carefully placed onto vegetation as some species do.  The males hold onto the females while they lay the eggs to prevent other males from mating with her. I don’t know which one of them controls the movement – whether the female decides when to dip or whether the male just dunks her in the water when he feels like it.

Occasionally we’ve been lucky enough to find a pair of darters at the earlier stage in the mating cycle, when they are curled together in the wheel position, before they take off on their tandem flight. The male clasps the female at the back of her head and the female curves her abdomen up and round to collect the sperm from the top of his abdomen.  When they are stationary like this it is possible to get sharp enough photos to determine which species we’re looking at. So far all these pairs have turned out to be Common Darters, but hopefully the Ruddy Darters have been mating in the pond too.

We had some very hot weather for a few days in August and one Common Darter in particular spent a lot of time in the obelisk pose (I’ve not made that up, it’s a real thing in dragonflies!). They align themselves so that the tip of the abdomen is pointed towards the sun – it’s supposed to reduce the surface area exposed to the heat and so stop them overheating.

One of them even did it right in front of me, its abdomen pointing right up and pulsating slightly. Again apologies for blurry camera work, but I hadn’t been expecting a pulsating bottom to be pointed at me this way!

 

The Emperor dragonflies were still visiting in August and laying lots of eggs. This one made good use of one of the barley logs we have in the pond to keep the water clear. I know I shouldn’t anthropomorphize a dragonfly, but she really does seem to have a look of concentration on her face to me.

 

There have been some other large dragonflies zooming around the pond this last few weeks, but it took until a few days ago for a couple to stop long enough to get a photo. For some reason both chose to rest on the Himalayan Honeysuckle that hangs over the pond from next door.  After some debate the first one was identified as a female Southern Hawker.

I thought the second one was probably the same, but turns out no, it was a female Migrant Hawker.

I think these two hawker species will be another pair that I can only reliably separate with decent photos. Both stunning dragonflies though.

So that brings our dragonfly/damselfly tally for the new pond to 9 species. Pretty impressive for a pond that is only just over 6 months old. And there are still a few species that we might yet hope to see in future years. Hopefully next summer we will have plenty of dragonflies emerging from the pond and the cycle will begin again. Now that’s something to smile about.

 

 

 

Damsels & Dragons – Part 2

As promised, here’s part 2 of Damsels and Dragons. Since part 1 was all about damselflies, it will come as no surprise that part 2 is all about the dragonflies we’ve seen in the new pond so far.

The first species appeared in the middle of May – a Broad-bodied Chaser. It was a female with a lovely golden and, as the name suggests, broad body (well abdomen). We’ve not seen any males, but the female (or possibly more than one female) has been back several times and has clearly found a male somewhere as she’s been laying eggs. Each egg is laid incredibly quickly as she dabs her abdomen in the water.

As she was our first proper dragonfly in the pond, we went a bit overboard on the photos, but I’ve whittled them down to just a few here.

I like in the photo below that you can see how her wings beating is causing ripples in the water with the downward pressure.

One of the things I like about dragonflies is the way the like to find a perch from which to survey their pond. So I figured our pond would benefit from a dragonfly perch – or stick shoved into the ground at a jaunty angle. So I was really chuffed when our first chaser gave it her seal of approval and perched right on it.

The next dragonfly to turn up has only been seen once so far (perhaps it found our pond lacking somehow or perhaps it didn’t find a mate?) It was a Four-spotted Chaser, a species I don’t think we’ve seen before anywhere, let alone in our own garden. It may have found the pond lacking but it did pose nicely on “my” perch,

It also posed beautifully on a bee garden ornament a friend had kindly given me for Christmas. I’d stuck the bee on a stick by the pond, but hadn’t actually expected the dragonflies to take me up on it – but it clearly makes another good perch.

It didn’t hang around for very long, so I didn’t get my usual hundreds of photos, but I quite like this one where it looks like it’s falling off the borage – not that a dragonfly would ever do anything as inelegant as fall off something.

I got excited when the next dragonfly arrived, thinking we’d got another new species. It had a broad abdomen and was laying eggs, but it didn’t look like any female Broad-bodied chaser I’d ever seen before. Turns out this was exactly what it was, just a more mature specimen. Apparently older females change colour and start to look more like the males. This one had quite a bit of blue on her tail, so she must have been an old gal!

I thought as I starting typing this post that this next one was the final (although I was still hoping for more) species of dragonfly to find our pond – the Common Darter.

The Common Darter can look very similar to the Ruddy Darter, but if you look at their legs very closely, you can see that the Common Darter has a dirty yellow stripe down each leg. The Ruddy darters on the other hand have all black legs. There are probably other ways of telling them apart, but this seems to be the most reliable – if you can get a decent photo of a leg!

 

Here’s a couple more photos of it, just because it posed so nicely on the perch (yes I was still smug that they were using “my” perch even a month later).

So I’d thought that would be it for this post, but before I could upload it, a dream came true and a female Emperor dragonfly graced our pond. Not only graced it, but laid eggs in it!

 

She’s been back a couple of times since, so plenty of photo opportunities, although getting a decent shot of her in flight has proved nigh on impossible.

She didn’t sit on my perch but I can forgive her for that for being just so big and beautiful! So all being well we should have emperor dragonfly larvae in the pond for the coming year – perhaps not good news for some of the other pond inhabitants as the dragonfly larvae are huge and voracious predators.

So that’s our dragonfly/damselfly round up so far – 6 species to date. Of course it would be nice to get a few more; I would love to see one of the Demoiselle species, but I think they prefer running water. Maybe we need to install a stream next?

Damsels & Dragons – Part 1

Our new pond only went in just over 5 months ago, but it’s been truly amazing what has already found its way here. One of the groups of animals we’d really hoped to attract was the Odonata – the dragonflies and damselflies. Of course we didn’t expect to get them for a few months, they don’t start emerging until the warmer weather comes, so all we could do was watch and wait. One good thing about the lockdown – it gives you plenty of time to watch and wait by a pond.

Right on time though at the end of April our first species arrived – the Large Red Damselfly. I’d spotted one down at the allotments, so was keeping an especially beady eye out and the next day one found its way to our pond.

Within a few days I was even more excited to find we had a pair of mating Large Red Damselflies. The male is the upper one of the pair. He has a pair of hooks at the end of his abdomen which he uses to hold onto the female around her neck. He holds onto her while she lays the eggs to prevent other males getting a look in!

Their larvae take two years to develop, so all being well, we should have our own “home-grown” red damselflies emerging from the pond in 2022.

I was barely getting over the excitement of the first damselfly’s appearance when the next one turned up – a stunning blue, or as it turned out Azure Damselfly. Since then we’ve seen them a few times, both males and females, but have never spotted a mating pair. Hopefully they have perhaps just been more discrete than the red damselflies and we will be lucky enough to have some emerge next year – they have just a one year life cycle compared to the 2 year for the reds.

The next two photos are of female Azures, below which are 2 males. The females have a bluey green tint, while the males are a much more vivid blue – azure I suppose!

As the pond was new and dragonflies and damselflies take at least a year to develop, we hadn’t expected to get any newly emerging ones. What we hadn’t banked on was getting damselfly larvae arriving with plants we’d ordered. This is the only explanation I can think of, for finding a newly emerged damselfly still pumping up its body on a reed.

The exuvia that the new adult had crawled out of was still clinging to the bottom of the reed, like some weird little alien.

The damselfly was very pale; it can apparently take a few days for them to develop their mature colouration, so we can’t be sure what species this is, but it’s probably one of the blue tailed ones. To start with the abdomen was shorter than the wings, but as we watched, it pumped itself up until eventually the abdomen was clearly much longer than the wings. You can see this in the sequence of photos below.

While its rear end was busy getting bigger, it had a quick wash and brush up round the head using its front legs.

Despite us both sitting there watching, we somehow managed to miss the moment of take-off. But a few minutes later we spotted this one just a foot away on a plant by the pond – probably/possibly the same individual having a rest after all the exertions of emerging. It has darkened up, but still lacks the blue colouration.

So that’s a round up of our damsels – very pleased to have such success with the pond in only the first few months. I’ll do a second blog post for our dragons next – the damsels have been great, but the dragons really are stunning!

Incoming Insects

It’s been an interesting couple of weeks for migrants (of the insect type) in our garden and around Malvern, so I thought I’d collate what we’ve been seeing.

First up an insect that is really only a migrant by name – the Migrant Hawker (Aeshna mixta). A beautiful dragonfly that used to be fairly uncommon in the UK – hence the name Migrant, but is now well established. This particular one was buzzing for insect prey on some rough ground at Chris’ workplace.

We’ve been blessed with at least one Painted Lady butterfly (Vanessa cardui) in the garden most days for the last month or so, but apparently we are not alone. Every few years the country gets a “Painted Lady Summer” when they come over in huge numbers from abroad – and this is one of those summers. Some people have reported seeing them in their hundreds (a friend of mine in Edinburgh got driven inside by having so many of them on her patio it freaked her out!). Sadly we’ve not had that many, probably because we’re the wrong side of the country, so the most we managed to count on the buddleia was 5 at one time. But that’s a record for us, so we’re happy to see them even in low numbers.

We tend to be more lucky with the moths. First a very small migrant moth, but one which some years can come over in huge numbers. The Diamond-back Moth (Plutella xylostella) is only a few mm long, but somehow manages to survive the journey over from the continent and into our Malvern garden. Most years we only get 1 or 2 at a time; the most we’ve ever had in the moth trap in one night is 20, but they can apparently arrive in their thousands. Not the greatest photo of this one below, but you can at least make out the joined up diamond pattern on its back.

A larger macro moth – the Silver Y (Autographa gamma) is another one we see regularly in low numbers. They have a characteristic Y shaped mark on the wings (although admittedly it is upside down) and are often active during the day. The first one I ever saw, was nectaring on some lavender during the day – I thought initially it was a Hummingbird Hawkmoth from the way it moved, but  know better now!

We have seen genuine Hummingbird Hawkmoths this summer, but I’ve not managed to get any photos – they’re just too fast and I’m just too slow most of the time. But here’s one we did manage to catch a couple of years ago.

 

Undoubtedly though the highlight of my moth-ing career so far, and probably the best catch I’ll ever get, was one from a fortnight ago. I’d been enviously enjoying photos of Bedstraw Hawk-moths (Hyles gallii) on various social media for a couple of weeks, but never dreamt I’d be lucky enough to catch one in our garden. But at the beginning of August I got up to empty the trap and nearly fainted at the sight of a Bedstraw Hawk-moth sitting there. I was so nervous opening the trap in case it flew off – no-one would ever believe me unless I could get a photo of it! Fortunately it was a docile beauty that didn’t object too much to being potted up and photographed.

I posted some photos on Facebook and a few fellow moth enthusiasts came round to see it before I released it unharmed. When I put it out on some Rose Bay Willow-Herb, it vibrated its wings for a few seconds to warm up:

Then it shot off like a rocket. We have a large buddleia bush nearby and it circled that a few times. I watched in horror as 3 sparrows flew out from the bush trying to catch it, but thankfully the moth was quicker than the birds and it got away. Don’t think I could have lived with myself if I’d seen it get eaten by the sparrows!

I am told this was only the 5th record of a Bedstraw for Worcestershire and probably the first record for Malvern. I doubt I’ll ever see another one and unless a Death’s Head Hawkmoth lands in the garden, I doubt I’ll ever have a more exciting moth find. But each weekend from now on I will open the moth trap in hope because you just never know what is going to be in there!

 

 

 

The Large Heath – Butterfly No. 46!

We headed off again on Saturday in search of our next butterfly species – the Large Heath. Whixall Moss is a peat bog on the English/Welsh border and the only place anywhere near us where we might see this increasingly rare butterfly. The bog has the beautiful Llangollen canal running along one side of it. We had to stop and wait for the bridge over the canal to be hand-winched back down as a narrow boat passed through.

We’d seen reports a mere 4 days before of sightings of upwards of 30 Large Heaths at Whixall Moss, so we’d set off with high hopes of nailing this one easily. These hopes were slightly dampened almost as soon as we left the carpark when we met an exhausted looking lady (carrying her even more exhausted little dog) who’d been searching in the scorching heat for 5 hours and not seen a single one. Undeterred (while slightly deterred to be honest) we carried on, following the walk described in the Butterflies of the West Midlands book.

We’d been walking for about an hour and a half and it was starting to look as if we’d draw a blank, although we had seen lots of other lovely wildlife. But then finally, just as we were about to head back, I spotted a butterfly dancing about the path. Initially I wasn’t sure what it was as it didn’t look like I’d expected. Turns out the Large Heath would struggle to pass the trade description law – it is actually really small! It was a raggedy little specimen and it insisted on hiding behind bits of grass, but at least we’d found one. It proved to be the only one we saw that day, but after a 2 hour drive and an hour and a half walk, we were grateful just to have found one. So here it is – our one and only Large Heath.

It looks a bit like a Meadow Brown but smaller and with spots like a Ringlet.

Whixall Moss is also well known for its population of White-faced dragonflies. Despite taking lots of dragonfly photos, none of them turned out to be white-faced. But we did get a new one for us – the Black Darter. Here is a male (top) and female (bottom).

There were blue and red damselflies everywhere and love seemed to be in the air for many of them, including this mating pair of Azure ones.

Aside from the whirring of insect wings in the air, there was the chirping of grasshoppers in the undergrowth. This one hopped obligingly onto the path in front of me.

The final insect of the day was a day flying moth and a new one for me – the Common Heath. As the Large Heath wasn’t particularly large, so the Common Heath didn’t seem to be particularly common, but I did manage to chase one down to get a photo.

As we’d walked along the path, something had scared up a pair of ground nesting birds. They took to the air for a few minutes until the danger had passed. We didn’t know what they were at first, but working on our usual principle of snapping anything that moves, we took some photos. Turned out they were lapwings.

A bit further on and we found more of them – this time looking a bit more relaxed, nesting by a pooled area. Lapwings have suffered major declines in the UK in recent years, so it’s always nice to go somewhere that has them.

So it was a long hot day at Whixall Moss, but the success of seeing the Large Heath and the bonus of the lapwings, made it all worthwhile. Butterfly species no. 46 ticked off the list – only another dozen or so to go!