Photographs

Gatekeeper

In the first few days of the month gatekeepers have replace marbled whites as the highest numbers in the garden.

Gatekeeper

They are not large and not obvious if they sit with their wings folded, but if we walk close to some plants in the boarder a small cloud of them errupts.

Gatekeeper

July is the peak month for this species in the UK and this looks like being a good year for them.

Marbled white

I thought they were finished for the year but a trip to Aston Clinton Ragpits on the 2nd found loads of them though there was none around my home less than 10 miles away.

Marbled white

At the end of last month these were prolific in and around our garden, but as the last heat wave ended they disappeared almost overnight.

Small skipper

These have increased in the garden this month any walk around our small garden will disturb a few.

Small skipper

They are among the easiest of our butterflies to take pohotos of, they sit still, don't go far when flushed and are quite colourful.

Green veined white

This is a butterfly that I never notice, they just get ignored along with large and small whites.

Green veined white

We have a twenty foot long lavender hedge and these seem particularly keen to nectar on it,

Humming bird hawkmoth

This visitor was very welcome only the second of the year in the garden, and the first to hang around for a while to allow some photos.

Humming bird hawkmoth

This is a summer visitor to the country from Europe and a very unusual moth, day flying, very small for a hawk moth and they hover and fly just like a real hummingbird.

Humming bird hawkmoth

This one fed all along the lavender hedge and turned when it reached the end and went back for most of the length.

Humming bird hawkmoth

They hover in front of flowers, sending out their long tongue to take the nectar then shooting off to the next flower almost impossible to follow.

Humming bird hawkmoth

This was a hawkmoth that we used to see in numbers on Portland every summer but rarely in Ruislip, now they seem to be getting more common this far north.

Humming bird hawkmoth

I find them very difficult to get any photos at all of and I have never had a perfect one but I was quite pleased to get these.

Common darter

Though this dragonfly flies from May until October, I generally see it in the late summer, this was the second species to visit our newly supplied perching sticks on the 2nd of the month.

Common darter

It first showed up for a short while on the 1st, hovering over the pond for about 20 minutes with two very short landings then disappeared.

Common darter

I found it, or perhaps a different male, mid morning on the 2nd perched on the top of one of the sticks, it spent the rest of the day there, with sorties out to feed or avoid me, sometimes moving to the othe stick

Common darter

This is a very common dragonfly, it's range covering almost all of the UK, and not quite as dramatic as the Hawkers or Chasers, though it is brightly coloured it is not very big.

Common darter

Though it spent most of the day on the rather unattractive perching sticks it did sometimes land on more attractive vegetation such as cotoneaster or this sedum generally known as ice plant.

Common darter

As the day went on it got quite approachable eventually allowing the camera to about a foot, or much closer than necessary for a clear photo.

Emperor dragonfly

Also on the second this male emperor turned up inside my cactus greenhouse, a dangerous place for insects due to the number of spider webs in the, inaccessible to me, corners. after a while I managed to encourage him out of the door but not before he picked up some spider web on his wings. I immediately took a rest to get over the shock.

Emperor dragonfly

On the third this, female emperor appeared in the pond egg laying, at the same time a broad bodied chaser female was also laying eggs by dipping her tail whilst in flight, but never sitting still for a photo.

Emperor dragonfly

On the plus side for the clean out we have never had so many species laying eggs in the pond before so far large red and blue tailed damsels, broad bodied and four spot chasers, common darter and emperor dragonfly, and it's only the begining of July.

Emperor dragonfly

An unfortunate side effect of cleaning out the pond last autumn is that the plants have not regrown well enough to control the algae giving rise to an odd appearance in some of the photos

Emperor dragonfly

This bodes well for emergence next year, watching an ugly dragon fly nymph climb up a stem and burst out of its skin to slowly morph into a beautiful teneral dragonfly is a mini wild life miracle which I always enjoy.

Emperor dragonfly

The females lay their eggs over many days, they may lay hunderds of eggs in their life time, hopefully to brightn the garden of the next few years.

Emperor dragonfly

She was laying eggs on and off for a couple of hours, sometimes flying off for a few minutes, she did not only use the old stick ot Lilly pad to land on, these just made the most attractive photos.

Blue tailed damselfly

Troughout the season there are always two or three of these around the pond.

Blue tailed damselfly

Though small and skinny they are very agressive often attacking the much larger darters and chasers.

Blue tailed damselfly

This shows a male and female coupling, preparring to add some mor eggs to the pond for the future, unfortunately for them, many will be eaten by the chaser and emperor nymphs.

Dark giant horsefly

Whilst watching the emperor egg laying this massive fly appeared around the pond, I have never seen one before but its size drew my attention, it's about 25 mm long and buzzes loudly. Apparantly they are common, but usually around cattle and horses.

Four spot chaser

On the fifth another male had taken up residence on the stick, this time it was a rather dull coloured four spot chaser.

Four spot chaser

Like the broad bodied chaser male and the common darter this one appeared mid morning, remained on or around the perches all day until late afternoon and did not return the next day.

Four spot chaser

They are called four spot chasers because of the 4 very obvious spots on the wings, they show particularly well when perched with their wings open.

Four spot chaser

The flight period is May, June July and until 3rd week of August, this is right at the peak.

Four spot chaser

This is our most common and widespread chaser in the UK.

Four spot chaser

Our pond is not large only 8ft by 6ft, but it is near the back fence, over the fence are 3 other ponds all of which are larger than ours, so I suspect we get some extra dragonflies as spill over from the other ponds.

Jersey Tigermoth

End of last month we had cream spot tigermoths in the garden, they fly in May and June, they have now been replaced by jersey tigers which fly in July and August, both are equally colourful.

Jersey Tigermoth

Though fuzzy through the plastic sheet from my moth trap, this photo shows just how colourful the rarely seen underside is.

Four spot chaser

Robin

This baby robin does not look like a bloody thirst murderer but it is, it hangs around the moth trap in the morning picking off any little moth it can grab, so persistant is it that I have had to call a temporary halt to using the trap.

Chalk hill blue

This is a well known site for this rather localised species.

Chalk hill blue

The heat wave continues, but not quite so hot, so though it was a bit early we went to Aston Clinton Ragpits on 17th to look for some chalk hill blues, not to be confused with Hill Street Blues.

Chalk hill blue

The rag pits is a very small reseve but the wild flowers are plrolific, I hoped for high numbers of these, like the marbled whites a few weeks ago, but we probably saw no more than twenty. I have never go the hang of counting butterflies as they are so mobile, the most we saw in the air at once was three.

Chalk hill blue

The Ragpits are difficult for photography as it is important that you do not leave the paths, due to the specialised orchid habitat, but the butterflies do not know this, or perhaps they do.

Chalk hill blue

At around 38mm wingspan it is one of the larger blues, though still quite small, but easy to identify in flight because of it's pale blue colour.

Brown Argus

I was surprised to find this single second generation brown argus, first generation is mid May till late June, second one starts late July.

Brown argus

These are tiny brown butterflies though part of the "Blues", it is one I never go out looking for specifically, but am always happy to find one, always in long grassy areas and usually on chalk or limestone.

Brown argus

This one was plesantly tolerant, it allowed me to get very close and did not flit about, a pleasant change from the Chalk Hills that didn't stay still long.

Brown argus

The underside of the argus is quite similar to the common blue, both have to be quite fresh to show their the true intricacy of the pattern,it's a tiny work of art.

Brown argus r

At 29 mm wingspan it is about 6 mm smaller than the common blue, the female of which can somtimes look quite similar

Six spot burnett

Though in some places a very common day flying moth, I don't see these much at all where I live, there were a few at the rag pits, and nice to see.

Common blue

This female looks very like a brown argus, but the blue around the body says it is not one, the argus is almost always just brown.

Common blue

Common blues are often quite worn it was nice to see this one perched so attractively and in fresh condition.

Common blue

Though called the common blue this butterfly is in noticable decline in Britain.

Comma

When we arrived home this one was posing on our buddleia. This is almost the complete opposite of the chalk hill blue which is limited in locations with a short flight period, the comma can turn up almost anywhere in the southern half of G.B. an almost any month that butterflies fly and can even be found in hibernation in the winter.

Long Tailed shrike

On the 21st we went to farmland near Burford to see the Mega rare long tailed shrike from Asia, only the third ever in the UK, the site was very remote, being down a series of very narrow lanes, but it was well visited with over 50 cars in the makeshift car park when we arrived.

Long tailed shrike

All my photos were hopeless, but that was bearable when I assumed everyone had the same issues, but on the walk back to the car we met a man who told us that earlier in the morning it was showing well very near to the road where the birders gather. This was backed up by the surge in photos put up on Birdguides the next morning.

Long tailed shrike

The bird was very special, the weather was great but the dowside to taking photos was that the bird remained in the same clump of trees a long way away from the crowd, often obscured, and the heat haze was very bad, even spoiling telescope views.

Brimstone

Brimstones are butterflies that I tend to see for most of the season, but never common, this year they have been around my garden as usual, but in much greter numbers, just gut feel, at least three times the usual numbers.

Brimstone

I don't find them easy to approach if flushed they tend to fly away and not return, but we have had one on this perenial sweet pea almost constantly for about 3 days.

Brimstone

It's probably a bit shallow, but my interest in wild life is mostly just liking it for its own sake not particularly for the science, and this mix of colours is a good example , it's just beautiful.

Bedstraw hawkmoth

Oh great joy, on the 29th this uncommon summer migrant turned up in my moth trap, I don't believe I have ever seen one before.

Bedstraw hawkmoth

I beleive the adults arrive here from the Continent in spring and lay eggs in bedstraw, they do not arrive in the UK every year, and some years there are good numbers.

Bedstraw hawkmoth

It was the only Hawkmoth in the trap, most of the regular ones have now finished, it was also rather nervous for a hawkmoth, they normally are very docile but this one started to vibrate its wings as soon as I picked up it's egg box.

Bedstraw hawkmoth

It used to be accepted that they rarely moved away from the coast, but this one was in Aylesbury, miles fom the sea, what next? perhaps a convolvulus or deaths head.

Hummingbird hawk

For about 12 years we were regular visitors to Portland Bill in Dorset where these we quite regular, but not common, in summer, but generally I did not often see them anywhere else.

Hummingbird hawk moth

Over the last ten years I have seen one or two in other places, one or two a year in my garden since we moved here in 2019, but this year we have already seen then on about ten occasions, this summer is becoming a bit of a record breaker.

Hummingbird hawk moth

I have struggled to take photos of real humming birds in the Americas on a few occasions, and these moths do move just like them as they feed from the flowers, but they are not as attractive.

Hummingbird hawk

Though these photos are not so sharp I am pleased if I get one that shows what they look like, they hover and dart about at very high speeds.

Hummingbird hawk moth

Without the camera it would be impossible to see any detail of them if you just watch them, and they are very hard to find perched.

Painted lady

Like the hummingbird hawk this one is much more numerous in my garden this year than I have ever seen before, and now most that I see are pristine, so I guess the eggs were laid here.

Painted lady

It is a good butterfly for photographers as it poses equally often with wings open and closed, and both sides of the wing, though different, are both beautiful with an intricate pattern.

Painted lady

They do vary in size a bit, but are about the same size as a red admiral, some times a bit bigger, they both share a buddleia in our garden.

Painted lady

It completes a trio of very welcome butterfly and moth migrants in the garden on the same day, some years I don't see any of the three.