We took another trip out to Jeskyns today, which was almost really good. I found a male wasp spider and another orb-weaver, Neoscona adiantum, but the autofocus on my compact camera is not up to the task of telling the difference between a spider and a field of grass, so would not focus on either of them. There were a lot of these moths around, the shaded broad-bar, which sometimes rest flat like this, but often with their wings folded upright, like a butterfly. I was quite pleased with this portrait of two Roesel’s bush crickets, a male and a female. They both pinged away in unison immediately after I took this shot, so I was lucky to get it. The female on the right is fully-winged, which is quite unusual for a Roesel’s; they are usually short-winged, like the male on the left. They are named after August Johann Rösel von Rosenhof, a German entomologist.
- I saw two crows sitting on adjacent fence posts and thought, well why not? I don’t have any decent photos of crows. I think the one on the right is a fledgling; it looks a bit fluffy anyway.
Last time we came to Jeskyns, three weeks ago, it was absolutely rotten with marbled white butterflies, but they had all gone now. Until, that is, we were most of the way round the park, where there was a 100-foot stretch of grass that was absolutely infested with the things. They were fluttering and landing all around me, to the point that I didn’t know which way to point my camera. They never rested for more than a few seconds though, and this is the best shot I managed. They are all starting to look a little raggy and careworn now as well.
This little butterfly is a large skipper, on some kind of dandelion-derivative wildflower. The peculiar wing pose is characteristic of skippers, especially the large.
The moth below rejoices in the name of beautiful plume. I’m told there are something like 35 species of plume moths in the UK, but I only ever see common and
beautiful, with the occasional white. Having said that, they are mostly notoriously similar, and I think some of the commons I see are actually browns, but I am hoping one day to see one that is
clearly different! Cue tomorrow’s blog …
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