First Butterfly Sighting and Other Insects in the Garden

 

At long last, the day finally arrived! I saw my first butterfly of the year, a smart male Brimstone, gracing our garden yesterday. 

But there were other sights to catch my attention as I took a careful look around this morning. One of these was the bee you see in the photo above and in the photo below. 

 

I watched as the bee squeezed herself in and out of the curled leaf. I know little about bees, but I am guessing she was a queen bumblebee, and that she had passed the winter hibernating in the patch of leaf litter. I spent several minutes watching her.

Something else 'bee-like' stopped me in my tracks. It was what I think may be a Red-mason bee, though, as ever, please correct me by leaving a comment. 

As you can see in the photo above, this little bee was soon joined by a much more ferocious-looking insect (is it a wasp or a wasp-mimic?). I waited to see what would happen next, and after just a few short seconds, the bee took off.

It seems to have been a good day for bees here. Look at the golden pollen in this Honeybee's 'saddlebags'! 

I have not been able to identify the fly in the  photo above yet, but wonder if it is a Soldier Fly. Update: it's hard to see what lies under the wings, but I'm wondering if this is more likely to be Meliscaeva auricollis.

Let's have a brief 'insect interlude' to make way for the cheering sight of this blossom. I love seeing the colourful flowers once again.

But, of course, it's not just the plants that bring colour. The photos below show the distinctive reds and oranges of our 7-spot Ladybirds. The one in the next photo has an unusual mark on its elytra. There are certainly two, and probably three, 7-spots in the second picture, along with a Pine Ladybird. 

I was delighted to discover more Violets in the garden this morning. And finally, what a joy it was to see the Brimstone, even if I was unable to take its photograph. I saw the one below in 2019. 

I see I have almost completed a year of the Butterfly Conservation Garden Butterfly Survey. Having failed to spot any butterflies in January and February a year ago, I began to log my sightings at end of March 2020.

Butterflies at NT Wicken Fen

We have just returned from a day at NT Wicken Fen, where we were particularly keen to look for butterflies and dragonflies, but I couldn't resist this magnificent cockerel in the grounds of the Fenman's Cottage, which you can see below.

This is the start of the trail... (and as you can see, it was pretty warm, even in the dappled shade)...

 David tried out my pocket field glass on an obliging Skipper...

I particularly like Brimstones, and there were a few of these about...

... and one or two Red Admirals. 

We reckoned this tree was oozing sap or something as there were two flies, the Red Admiral in the photo above and a huge Hornet all in the space of a few centimetres. 

The Brimstones were still there on our way back up the path to the visitors' centre. We also saw one Peacock (which landed on my shirt) and one Holly Blue.

By the early evening, there were plenty of Small Tortoiseshells. I suspect the very warm weather had something to do with this.

It is always a joy to watch the Marsh Harriers, birds that were considered very rare during my teenage years...

 And as for the dragonflies, well, they will have to wait for another post.

Garden 'First' - Brimstone Butterfly

Female

I made my first recording to date of a Brimstone (male) in our garden yesterday. I wondered if I had glimpsed one the day before, but yesterday's was a definite sighting. It perched on our gold Euonymus bush for a couple of seconds, sadly not long enough for me to get my camera into focus, before flying off. But it was there.

The photos above an below were taken on previous occasions and in different places, but they show the difference in colour between the female and the male.

I shall soon be posting an updated garden list of the species I have observed...

Male

Brimstone Butterfly

We saw our first female Brimstone of 2017 last Sunday flitting around the hedge in our church car park. Sadly I did not have my camera with me, so this is a photo from last summer (you can tell the season by the orange Crocosmia, which is not yet in flower!).

Male Brimstones are a distinctive lemon colour and females have a touch of cream about them. I had never made the connection between the word 'butterfly' and the (butter) colour of the Brimstone before.

After a slow start, there are suddenly numerous signs of spring, and I wonder which species of (early) butterfly will cross my path next...

Butterflies at NT Oxburgh Hall

The Big Butterfly Count finished on 7 August, although records can still be submitted until the end of the month. We did a count on 6 August at NT Oxburgh Hall, and you can see the results in the chart below.

We were particularly thrilled to see the Painted Ladies drawing nectar from the Heliotrope in the parterre garden.

NT Oxburgh Hall, Norfolk - parterre garden

This is our list, but, of course, we continued to see other butterflies (which were not counted) after the allocated 15 minutes. The photos below the chart show a mix of the counted butterflies and the ones that escaped the survey.

Painted lady

NT Oxburgh Hall, Norfolk

Brimstone in the flower border

Plants on which to feast the eye

A Comma in the wood

These magnificent Large White larvae were feasting on the Nasturtiums

Peacock on the Buddleia

Gatekeeper, to match the wall

We also saw a large moth, which I shall try to identify before posting its photo. Watch this space. I have posted it on iSpot, but think I have now worked out what it is ...

More Butterflies (including another Big Butterfly Count) and Moths

We spent Saturday at NT Wicken Fen in Cambridgeshire. It was a very hot day and we hoped that we might see good numbers of odonata and lepidoptera.

We decided to do a second Big Butterfly Count - this time along the Butterfly Walk. We saw other butterflies, too, such as the Small Tortoiseshell and the Peacock, but the ones in the list above were the ones we were able to count during the allocated time.

I mentioned in my previous post that there are two day-flying moths that can be counted alongside butterflies for the purpose of this particular survey, namely the Silver Y (a migratory species) and the Six-spot Burnet. I have seen both these species this year (the Silver Y sighting was a first for me), but not during a count.

The Silver Y in the photos below was at NT Dunwich Heath, nectaring on bell heather.

You can make out the tail of the letter 'y' on the left forewing

Frontal view

So then we come to the Six-spot Burnet.

The photo below (my apologies for the lack of focus: I blame the breeze which caused the grass to sway!) was taken at Minsmere ...

... where we also saw the adult moths taking to the air on their maiden voyages ...

There is another day-flying (but also night-flying) moth that we sometimes see here in Suffolk, the Cinnabar moth. Its caterpillars stand out against the grass and can often be seen on Ragwort. Here is a photo:

And here is the adult moth in a picture I took at Snape Maltings in early June ...

cropped close-up