Pedal Power

The weekends at St Margaret's during the summer are the times when it is best not to decide to visit the bay or the monument once the day has begun to warm up. The car parks are full up and the foot paths crowded with visitors. I don't blame them, we are lucky to have all this on our doorstep, but I must admit that the car park by the monument needs some control as it has become a mobile homes park, mainly for visitors from Germany, leaving little room for smaller vehicles.

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This lady, probably from Holland, (that's a pure guess but she looks as if she's from Holland), is much more Eco-friendly. She's got everything she needs packed into the bags on her bike and looks to be enjoying the experience. Admittedly I took this as she entered the village from Reach Road, so it's down hill and the wind is at her back, I bet she wasn't smiling if she tried to pedal up hill from the Bay!

When I was showing visitors moths last weekend, one thing that was most apparent was the love of butterflies and the complete separation that most people have in their minds of butterflies and moths. When you see an Early Thorn ant rest it could quite easily be a Gatekeeper in the way it sits with its wings held over its back.

Apart from some of the iconic butterflies, like Red Admirals and Painted Ladies the butterflies that people are most familiar with is the "cabbage" White, few realising that there are several species of whites. Both Large and Small Whites have been active in the garden this week and I noticed this Green-veined White on the Red Valerian outside my hobby room today.

Syrphus ribesii

Another mis-understood group of insects are Hover flies, and at the moment we seem to be in the midst of quite an invasion here. I hope that I've go the identifications right. There are a lot of different species in the garden at the moment and many of them end up in my hobby/photography room when the windows are open.

I don't think that these two pictures are the same species, but I'm not sure what they are. I think that the one above might be Eupeodes corollae, also known as Metasyrhus corollae.

The one above, another one indoors, looks like Scaeva pyrastri, but again I'm not entirely sure.

Volucella zonaria

This large species, a mimic of a Hornet, landed on my desk. Pam's herb garden is below one of the windows, so I think they are attracted there and then come in to see me.