Butterflies in the Garden

 There were three or four Red Admiral and a couple of Comma Butterflies in next doors garden the other day however, rather than invade their space I put the 500mm lens on the camera and I got these images from our garden.

Red Admiral Butterfly.

A bee took a fancy to the same flower as the Red Admiral.

The bee flew off and the butterfly kept on feeding.

Red Admiral and Comma Butterflies.

Comma Butterfly.

This is one of the species of spider that come into the house at this time of year looking for a mate. My wife caught it a glass and put it outside where I was able to get a picture of it.

Causey Woods.

 I have just got back home from a week’s holiday in Scotland (I still haven’t gone through the thousands of pictures I took but when I have, I will post them on the Blog) so I’m even further behind than I was.

I had a walk through the Causey Woods at the beginning of this month looking for Dipper and I was in luck I found a pair of adults with two young chicks and when they weren’t being disturbed by dogs and small children in the water, they posed well for me.

One of the adult Dipper.

The adult bird watched this Mayfly as it flew past but didn’t try to catch it.

One of the young Dipper.

Grey Wagtail.

I also managed a couple of images of a female Broad-bodied Chaser.

Male Banded Demoiselle. 

Comma Butterfly.

Twizell Wood

 My wife and I had a walk through Twizell Wood today and as it is late in the season for dragonflies it is probably the last time I will visit. We saw only two male Southern Hawkers but there were still quite a few Common Darters on the wing however I did not expect to see any butterflies but a late Comma showed briefly.

Southern Hawker hunting for lunch.

Southern Hawker eating lunch.

There was quite a stiff breeze and this Southern Hawker seemed to prefer to hunker down in the grass rather than fly around.

Male Common Darter. I did not see any females.

This Comma butterfly landed briefly on a tree unfortunately it was blown off by a gust of wind and I could not relocate it.

We saw three Curlew in a field on the way back to the car and I managed to get a couple of them in flight as the flew off.

Twizell Ponds

Another visit to Twizell Woods to visit the ponds and this time the water levels were a little higher which was great to see. Good numbers of dragonfly, damselfly and butterflies around the ponds made it a canny afternoon out. 

Southern Hawker.

Female Southern Hawker laying eggs on a bulrush.

She tried a few different locations.

Male Black Darter.

Male Ruddy Darter.

Common Darter.

A pair of Emerald Damselfly.

Two pair of Emerald Damselfly.

Hairy/Sloe Shieldbug. This is one of only two I saw.

Large While Butterfly

Comma Butterfly.