I started the photography of the day in our garden. The Buddleia near the backdoor was busy with butterflies, bees and hoverflies.
Please tap on an image to see it larger, and with more words after tapping on the i symbol, in it gallery carousel.
I had seen Commas, Small Tortoiseshell and Red Admirals already this year but this was my first Painted Lady of the year. We had loads in 2019, some in 2021 and I don’t remember any last year.
I then decided to go down to the Peace Garden at the end of the Cliffe Avenue playground. The photos from there I had put in a columned gallery instead of a tiled gallery – this lets me add the captions.
I was pleased to see Small Skippers but the place was more busy with smaller insects. I will go along later in the year to look for Cinnamon Moth caterpillars on the Ragwort. At the end of the above gallery I have added a few photos of some of the plants growing in the Peace Meadow.
If you tap on an image and then tap on the i symbol you should be able to scroll down to some more words for each image.
After leaving the Peace Garden I noticed that there was quite a lot of Ragwort next to the road at the junction of Cliffe Avenue and Green Road so I stopped and had a look. The photos below are from that small area.
One of the first things I noticed was the sun on a leaf in the tree next to me. The leaf had a circle drawn on it, the sun making it stand out. I held it more to the sun and took a photo. At the end of the right hand section of the pale trail you can see the segmented body of the caterpillar embedded in the leaf. The pale trail shows what the caterpillar has eaten away and the dark specks are its poo.
With a bit of stalking and careful positioning I manged to get some photos of the Small Copper and Gatekeeper. The Meadow Brown and Ringlet were pure luck. The Bracket Fungus on a tree stump, right next to the road was not going anywhere so I suppose I could have cleared the grass and cleavers from around it.
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