I have been out an about with the camera around some farm lanes near Newport recently. These photos are an amalgam of shots taken on late afternoon Saturday (2nd June): and early Sunday (3rd)
A rather scruffy-looking Buzzard.
A rather less-scruffy Buzzard.
A male Kestrel. Good to see this declining species still in the area.
What we could not see before was that this bird was carrying prey.
Looks like a bird it is carrying though can not make anything else out. Likely a nesting / unfledged bird as this species does not tend to hunt birds, preferring large insects, small lizards etc.
I make no excuses for the rather poor quality. I was using ‘sports mode’ to try to photograph the Barn Swallow coming down to drink – or so I thought. The camera reveals that it was actually diving in for an-on-the-go bath.
And here is proof it did not drown!
As an early nester Rooks enter the post-breeding moult early: this one is without a few primaries and secondaries.
A fly-past shows the effect of losing the inner primaries and outer secondaries on the shape of the wing trailing edge.
A Large White butterfly on Red Clover.
A quite splendid male Common Blue butterfly: more attractive with wings closed!
A skipper butterfly of course: but which? I can never remember. Large Skipper, as here, has the broad shading along the back of the wing – a thin narrow band on a Small or Essex Skipper. ‘Small’ and ‘Large’ are meaningless as the species are almost the same size. The mark in the middle of the wing – a scent mark (for giving or receiving?) indicates it is a male.
A more cooperative Timothy Tortrix (
Aphelia paleana) moth than any at Priorslee Lake so fat. It shows the diagnostic yellow flush on the shoulder of what is otherwise a rather featureless moth.
One of a number of very similar moths but seems likely to be an
Epiblema cirsiana (Knapweed Bell): the knapweed is about to flower.
A Silver Y moth: a very common immigrant, boosted in Autumn by local broods.
A female Black-tailed Skimmer. Only the males have black tails (and they have blue bodies).
Another specimen. This is only dragonfly with this build (skimmers / chasers) that has no colour in the wings (other than the small pterostigma near the wing-tips).
Unlike the unmarked wings of the Black-tailed Skimmer we see immediately why this is a Four-spotted Chaser. A female here.
The hoverfly Syrphus vitripennis.
A female or teneral Common Blue Damselfly.
A female Blue-tailed Damselfly of the form rufecens.
This is a female Oedemera nobilis beetle.
And here is the male that is unique in having a swollen hind femur.
The best I can do with this is a
sawfly sp., possibly
Tenthredo arcuata. Whatever it is covered in pollen from the buttercup.
A different specimen also covered in pollen.
And here it is with wings open.
I think Common Vetch (
Vicia sativa) though as various vetches have been grown as fodder and this is farmland it could well be a hybrid.
Looking at the very fine leaves I am sure this is Scented Mayweed (
Matricaria chamomilla). The flowers should soon downturn if my identification is correct. Corn Chamomile (
Anthemis austriaca) is another possibility but usually has larger leaflets.
And the flowers being attended by a Greenbottle fly (Lucilia sp.).
Not a flower I am too familiar with: I suspect Bugloss (Anchusa arvensis).
This orchid is I think a Southern Marsh Orchid.
(Ed Wilson)
