July 2022

During July I took my camera out with me a few times and also into our garden.

I had trips to Denso Marston Nature Reserve, Ben Rhydding Gravel Pits, and Shipley Glen (no Purple Hairstreak spotted).

As usual you can click on an image to see it within its own gallery.

I could look back through my posts to see when I was last down by the river at Denso Marston, it feels like it was quite a while ago. On the Tuesday it seemed quiet, I only saw about 5 or 6 people. A few juvenile birds were spotted including a couple of Kingfisher. The large pond had a couple of Moorhen nests on it with one of them being occupied. Moorhen breed from April to August. Pairs of Damselflies could be seen ovipositing. I don’t know what Waterlily flowers smell like but some of them appeared to attract a lot of flies.

At Ben Rhydding Gravel Pits on 7 July 2022 it was great to see lots of Sand Martins flying along the river. Juveniles kept flying back to the nest holes looking to be fed. At one point a Sand Martin perched of a wire fence was joined by another. The first one opened its beak to be fed but the other flipped round and tipped it off the wire as if telling it to go catch its own flies.

At the reserve there are several piles of sawn-off logs with drilled holes. It looks as though they are being used. At least one of the holes was being plugged by grit. In several places, where the sun shone through under the trees, there were Hoverflies and I managed to get a couple of photos of one of them. When it dangled its legs down it looked very strange.

On 11 July 2022 I went along to Bracken Hall Green to look for Purple Hairstreak butterflies in the tops of the Oak trees on the edge of Shipley Glen. I didn’t see any or even many other butterflies, which surprised me considering it was a sunny day. I did hear the a Buzzard on several occasions and one spent a while flying over the green. I spotted several Nuthatch in the trees.

These photos were taken in our garden during July. Both Small and Large White butterfly eggs and eggs of the Cabbage Moth. We have quite a few holes in our cabbages.

The Lavender in the front garden has really attracted the bees this year. The plants are quite big and have been teeming with Bumble Bees and Honeybees. The Buddleia has also been busy with Bees and Butterflies. Most of the bees were around the same size and happily buzzed around the flower heads but a couple of times I noticed a massive Bumble Bee. Most bees could span 3 or 4 of the small Lavendar flowers but the big brute could span 7 or 8 Buddleia flowers. It was perhaps 3 times the length of the others and so perhaps 9 times the weight.

In those photos I think we have Carder Bumble Bees, Red Tailed Bumble Bees, White Tailed Bumble Bees, Hoverfly, Greenbottle fly (Lucilla), Honeybees and possible others.