Living works of art?

Two things conspired to keep me at home today. One was the amount of top sport on the TV, and the other is that my car has decided not to start! As England are no longer in the World Cup, and my youngest grandson, Sam is currently proudly wearing his Espana shirt, while he and Rocio are visiting Rocio's family in Spain So Sam's Uncles, Aunts and cousins will all be celebrating tonight. I was pleased to see them get through, although the next match will be tough.

Scorched Wing (Plagodis dolabraria)

Each day is now bringing in a few interesting species and today one of my favourites was this Scorched Wing. I've always found the pattern on this moth fascinating, a real work of art, and this was a nice pristine specimen.

Maiden's Blush (Cyclophora punctaria)

This one is slightly tatty, but it is an good name, even if, in this immodest age we live in, it does seem an unlikely proposition.

Coxcomb Prominent (Ptilodon capucina)

Another good name and a moth with a clever defence mechanism. A soon as this moth is touched it feigns death and lies on it's side, looking for all the world a dead leaf. I had to wait for it to come alive and stand up for it's picture!

Dragon on the Roses

My attention was drawn to the bird bath, this afternoon, by the noise coming from the area.

The group of birds consisted of around ten Long-tailed Tits and six Blue Tits with a couple of Great Tits. The Long-tailed Tits called incessantly and were in and out of the water in small groups. The Blue Tits seemed happy to share in the communal bath frolics, but the Great Tits waited until, they could bathe singly.

Southern Hawker (Aeshna cyanea)

Pam drew my attention to this dragonfly perched on a rose bush near the bird bath. Rather easier to photograph that the flying Emperor, this is a male Southern Hawker. There are often found away from water, and they can be very inquisitive, often coming close to people, as if inspecting them. They are quite regular visitors to gardens where they patrol the area catching small insects.

Evergestis limbata

The warm weather has brought a few more species of moths and amongst them this morning was this beautiful little pyralid, Evergestis limbata. It was first recorded in the UK in 1993 and I caught my first one here in 2003. This one is the 13th I've caught and is most likely now breeding locally, rather than being a migrant.

Short-cloaked Moth (Nola cucullatella)

The Short-cloaked Moth is a fairly common moth and is classed as a 2macro" being in the family Nolidae. In fact with a wings span of 18-20mm it is a little smaller than Evergestis limbata, which has a wing span of 20-23mm.

Emperor at Kearsney

I took Pam's car to Leads at Kearsney for it's MOT today and used the time to walk down to Kearsney Abbey and Bushy Ruff.

This isn't really a quiz question, but as Rolf Harris might say- can you see what it is yet?

Emperor Dragonfly (Anax imperator)

One of the reason for visiting the lake at Bushy Ruff was to see if the Emperor Dragonflies were around yet, and I wasn't disappointed. There were at least three around and at one time I witnessed them in a group chase around.

The slight downward curve of the abdomen is immediately obvious and a good first clue to the identification. Mature males are blue with a black dorsal line. It is one of the largest of our dragonflies, and it is a voracious hunter, continually chasing and catching small insects over the water.

Although this picture isn't as sharp as I would like, it does show the strange angles and twists that the wings take during flight.

Mute Swan cygnets, when small are quite appealing, but when the get to this size they are rather gawky and inelegant especially when it's bottom's up to one and all.