June Flowers at Paxton Pits

The open dry areas at Paxton are awash with blue (Viper's Bugloss) and yellow (Biting Stonecrop and St Johns Wort) at the moment. The Common Spotted Orchids are doing well this year but only single Pyramidal Orchids and no Bee Orchids reported.

Paxton Damsels Versus Spiders

It was very much 'Eat or be Eaten' at Paxton on Saturday -  lots of  activity in the warm conditions!  I was pleased to photograph a Long-Jawed spider that decapitated a Damsel, my first Wasp Spider of the year, plus the very beautifully patterned Theridium pictum spider species, lots of Emerald Damselflies and Common Darters.

My Local Wood

Hardwick Wood was looking great yesterday in the strong dappled sunlight and well worth the long hot walk to get there. Butterflies everywhere with this Green-veined White taking centre stage for a time flitting among the bramble flowers but I soon found my target species, the Silver-washed Fritillary, in a sunlit glade along with  Large Skipper, Comma, Speckled Wood, Marbled Whites and impressive Pied Hoverfly and Hornet Hoverfly.

Spiders and Insects Toft and Trumpington

A mixed bag of images from the garden and from yesterday's Butterfly transect at Trumpington. The spiderlings on the parent's back caught my eye as I was deheading flowers yesterday along with various other spiders and beetles. Literally hundreds of Marbled Whites at Trumpington along with other species including the usual frustrating Skippers that are difficult to separate into species.