Drought Conditions at Summer Leys

The usually still lush meadow at Summer Leys is almost entirely without flowers now - just the Fleabane and a few remaining thistle flowers supporting a much reduced number of insect species. Below some of my favourite finds during the day, As at Paxton Migrant Hawkers reign supreme over the lakes and ponds while Small Heath, Small Copper, Brown Argus and Small White are the main butterfly species. It was an RPSNature outing so I was concentrating on backgrounds, composition rather than ID and species list but a few comedy shots also snuck in like the first Carder Bee out for a stroll and the shy grasshopper.

Paxton Pits Butterfly and Dragonfly Surveys

 A real mixed bag of images that reflect Paxton Pits showing some of its best to our large team of observers for our monthly Butterfly and Dragonfly survey yesterday. The route was the Meadow Trail. Butterflies were in very short supply and only two species were recorded on the survey route. The first image of the courting Speckled Woods is a fluke shot where the wing ete has exactly coincided with the position underneath of the true eye. Willow emeralds, Common Darters, Ruddy Darters, Migrant Hawkers, Red-eyed Damselflies and Common Blue Damselflies (no photo) kept us busy with ID sheets. The Wasp Spider, Sand Wasps and Great Crested Grebe chicks were from an afternoon walk round the Heron Trail

CRT Larkrise Farm Barton

 With the general dearth of insects in our drought conditions, I wasn't expecting large numbers of insects on my seasonal survey round Lark Rise Farm but there were even fewer insects etc than I predicted. Below are my only records for the 2-3 hour visit plus Brown Argus (2), Common Blue (?2), Meadow Brown (2) and Small White Butterflies (3)!!

Camouflage in the Garden

The dry conditions have reduced my garden wildlife but there are still insects to be found often well camouflaged on the flowerheads - the Hairy Shieldbug Nymph is amazing in its mimicry of the Knapweed calyx.