Toft Butterflies etc in Flight

As I have a short trip coming up at beginning of July to Kent, hopefully to see some new species of Dragonfly (and lots of different butterflies) thought it time to try and master the various techniques that Olympus offer to catch the insects in flight (subject recognition, procapture etc). Thank goodness that there are plenty of Damselflies, bees and butterflies to practise on in the garden as this is still work in progress. Wonderful to have Marbled White and even a tatty Silver Washed Fritillary in the garden - with half a wing missing, I think it must have just gone with the wind!!

 

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.