Today was a good day for taking photographs of butterflies on my phone!
Greater Bee Fly
This wonderful chap was sat on a gate I was fixing in the garden It is a Greater Bee Fly, Bombylius major, and is apparently a bee mimic. It lays eggs near the entrance of a ground nesting solitary bee and when they eggs hatch the larvae finds its way into the nest and feeds […]
Bee friendly spring flowers
Elephant Hawkmoth Caterpillar
17 August 2020 Whilst clearing a few plants next to a path this wonderful looking caterpillar crept out: A quick check on the iNaturalist app identified it as an Elephant Hawkmoth caterpillar, so called because it looks like an elephants trunk! They are usually found between July and September, the two enormous, black eyespots towards […]
Yellow Barred Longhorn
Whilst watering my 1 year old maiden apple trees in the fruit forest nursery I came across this little beauty. I couldn’t believe how long his antenae are! He is a male yellow barred longhorn, a diurnal moth who apparently is most commonly found on forest and woodland floors – so nice that he recognises […]
Small Tortoiseshell catterpillars
Although I leave a lot of nettles to grow in my hedge and other wilder areas of the garden I rarely see any catterpillars on them. Just down the road from our house is an expanse of nettles growing under oak and chestnut trees and this week there have been loads of catterpillars on them. […]
Grey Dagger Moth Caterpillar
I was pruning back some of the lower branches of an oak tree in our hedge this morning in order to let in a bit more light and to provide some more firewood. When I took a break for a cup of tea I found this little fellow on my arm: It is a […]
Small Tortoiseshell Butterfly
Small Tortoiseshell butterfly (Aglais urticae) on Michaelmas Daisy Michaelmas Daisies seem very popular with this butterfly, we have seen it repeatedly return to feed on the flower giving lots of opportunities to photograph it.The Small Tortoiseshell is one of our most familiar butterflies and used to be one of the most common but in recent years […]