It has been properly hot this weekend – well not really hot, but compared with the appalling spring, really quite warm. We went to Jeskyns again today and they have been letting the grass and wildflowers grow in large swathes across much of the site. This is great for me, and I went wading knee-deep in the sward, looking for bugs and beasties. There were quite a few of these day-flying moths around – this is the Burnet companion, so called because it tends to fly in company with burnet moths, as well as the Mother Shipton moth, which it resembles in size, shape and habits.
Talking of which, I also ran across this conspicuously yellow chrysalis, which I am pretty sure from previous experience contains a burnet moth pupa.
No w here was a great find – a fully-grown female crab spider Misumena vatia. They are sometimes called flower spiders, because they lurk completely still on white or yellow flowers waiting for prey to appear. The adult females can change their colour to match the host flower and become practically invisible – for me, the only thing that gives away their presence is the prey insect, which should be moving around, but is completely still. In this case, I noticed the bee and stooped to look at it, but it didn’t move a millimetre. I wondered then whether it had been snared by some predator, and only when I was looking for it did I notice this sizeable spider with its jaws embedded in the bee’s hide. Absolutely masterful camouflage!
I found this spider running at breakneck speed across the path outside the park. At first I thought it was a wolf spider, as it was about the same size and running just as fast. But it seemed the wrong shape somehow; the long legs seemed to mark it out as a running crab spider of the genus Philodromus – but then there is that stripe down its back. I must admit, it looked more than anything like a grass spider of the genus Tibellus, but a) these are usually found in lush undergrowth, and b) I didn’t realise they could run like that. I learned something today though; this genus of grass spiders is actually closely allied to the running crabs; they run down their prey rather than make webs, and that is exactly what this is: a grass spider Tibellus oblongus.
Which brings me to this bird; the world’s laziest skylark. I saw it land on a fence post, then move to another one a little further away, then sit there singing away as if it was flying aloft. I had a bit of trouble with the camera at this point though – like the little Canon compact I have, which has suddenly decided that it will always focus on the background when I am trying to take macro shots of insects, the Pentax bridge has now decided to always focus on the background when I am taking telephoto shots of birds. I managed to get it to focus on a few shots, although not very well it seems. Anyway, here is the lazy skylark:
We could hear a yellowhammer singing away ten to the dozen in a low tree as we entered the park, and it didn’t fly away even when we were quite close to the tree, but for some reason I couldn’t see it. Do you ever get that? I thought I was going to get an excellent photography opportunity, but I didn’t see it even when it flew away.
Back at home, late in the evening, a moth came fluttering around the living room. I took a flash photo of it when it landed, and it turned out to be the yellow form of the common marbled carpet, below left. Compare it with the moth of the same species I photographed at the garden show last week, below right:
Listen to Chalkhill Blue at Bandcamp.com!
If you would like to listen to the music of Chalkhill Blue for free, or purchase a download or CD, please click the link below.
Downloads can be purchased per track or whole album.
CDs include a full 8-page inlay booklet with notes on each track.
See also:
See the Chalkhill Blue CD at:
Rock Bottom Records, Whitstable
or click on the above graphic to buy online.
Write a comment