What have you seen

Good news about the increase in Hen Harrier breeding this year, nice to hear something positive.

This was a first for us. I had spotted an unusual butterfly in our garden over the last week. In flight it has a flash of bright orange but when it was resting today I managed to take a closer look and then looked it up. So this is a Jersey Tiger, not rare but not common either.

The second photo is a small slow worm, we have a lot of them in a warm compost tub so he went back in after the photo. 

I discovered this on a fuchsia munching on busy lizzy leaves. I think it might be a hawk moth caterpillar but I'm not certain can't find  an image identical.

 Think it could well be an Elephant Hawk moth caterpillar, B2.

We saw lots of Peacock and Red Admiral Butterflies today on our walk.

I guess that Autumn is just round the corner as there were well over 50 House Martins sitting on the telegraph wires close to the site yesterday & leaves are starting to go yellow and fall of the trees.Summer seems to be ending earlier than ever, unfortunately.

Middle of August & I was watching 3 fledgling Wrens being fed by a raggedy looking Mum, geez is she ready for a rest. I hope she gets back in condition before the Autumnal weather closes in👍🏻. 

Well just had a surprise just about to fill the kettle for an evening drink and outside the kitchen window a Hoopoe walking about and pecking into the ground for insects never been that close about 3 metres, made my day but no camera to hand even OH said what a amazing bird to see.

The swallows are starting to gather around here and it is feeling autumnal in the mornings even though it has been 30C plus over the weekend. Went for a walk this afternoon and in one field full of flowers there was a lot of butterflies about a wonderful sight after all the heat we have had. A good Monday.

Our local late swallows are raising their last broods whilst others are starting to leave. Thanks for your post RK, must have been lovely to see the Hoopoe! 

We have to say Gerald the peacock. We’ve visited Lower Wensleydale Club site 3 times and he never fails to make us smile.

Last weekend he seemed to be doing quite a lot of calling - not sure he wasn’t “on the pull”

He really is an asset to an already wonderful site

RK, good spot.  Hope to be in the Brenne about 12 days time so hope there are still plenty of birds around.  Swallows around the Mosel are still feeding their young so not ready to migrate yet.  Sand Martins at home generally leave towards the end of September.  

Today no Hoopoe but 3 wood larks about 5 metres from one of the lounge windows busy looking for insects in the wet grass as we had 9.9mm of rain overnight very welcome and the grass is starting to green up.  Got a lot of grasshoppers about now with blue or red underwings quite a flash of colour when they jump away from you when walking about.