Signs of Autumn

The appearance of the Ivy bees in the garden, timed to coincide with the Ivy flowering, is a sign that autumn is approaching. Lots of insects yesterday both on the ivy flowers and on the nettles below where the nectar has dropped, even a very tatty Speckled Wood. The Kite-tailed Robberfly was finding plenty of prey. The final two images are of an extraordinary looking very small plant bug - both its nymphal stage and adult that was hiding in the grass at my feet.

Summer Leys - Life in the Fleabane Meadow

 Although less insect and spiders around compared to previous years, there were plenty of species to be found on or near the Fleabane plants. The Picture winged Fly Merzomyia westermanni is my favourite find - it causes galls on Ragwort plants and is listed as 'local' with no recorded sightings in Northamptonshire area in the NBN atlas.

Birds at Summer Leys Northamptonshire

Great to see a large number and variety of water birds at Summer Leys Reserve today including several Great White Egrets, four Snipe, Ringed Plover, Green Sandpiper, large flocks of Lapwing as well as hundreds of ducks, and  lots of Heron, Grebes, Little Egrets etc.

30th August Toft Garden

Here are some of the species I was able to identify while starting to cut my  'meadow' area  - the root areas are particularly full of insects and spiders. There are many many more still to record  though not sure how many will be large enough to photograph and ID. some extras at the end from the Tansy etc