Royston Heath - Record Number of Bee Orchids

It was too windy on Church Hill yesterday to do full justice to the wonderful display of Bee and Fragrant Orchids in full bloom at the moment with just the occasional Pasque Flower remaining. I saw a single Adonis Blue and about 4 Marbled Whites and we were entertained by a hovering Buzzard and a very active Mistle Thrush.

King's College Cambridge

King's College grounds are looking at their best at the moment with the natural and planted meadows fully grown.  In 2020, they transformed a section of their lawn into a colorful wildflower meadow filled with poppies, cornflowers, and oxeye daisies. This was part of an effort to boost biodiversity and adapt to changing climate conditions.The meadow supported three times more plant and insect species than the remaining lawn, including 14 species with conservation designations.

Still Catching Up on IDs

 Another batch from the garden last week. The Hemiptera (plant bugs) give quite a challenge as they are generally small and move fast. If I find a new garden species, such as the second image (Closterotomus trivialis),  I look it up in the search text facility in Lightroom to see if I have recorded it before and was interested to find I saw this bug first in Crete. I researched it and found it was discovered in UK in 2009 but has now spread widely - another sign our climate is warming.

Catching Up On Garden Species

As usual at this time of year, I have got a bit behind with recording my garden species and I am also still trying to standardize a method of recording species name with the image that will make it possible to collate past years easily. Here is a set from May 22nd after a rainy night (all single exposures).