June Flowers and Insects

Tags

azure damselfly, Bittersweet, Black-tailed Skimmer, blue-tailed damselfly, common knapweed, Common Marsh-bedstraw, Common Sorrel, Creeping Cinquefoil, Cyperus Sedge, damselflies, dogwood, dragonflies, Elder, Four-spotted Chaser, garden, greenbottle, Hoverfly, insects, Meadow Buttercup, Oxeye Daisy, pond, Pyracantha, Suffolk, White Water Lily, wild flowers, yellow iris, Yorkshire Fog

Until this week we have had a very cool summer indeed which has meant that there have been very few insects about.  The common garden pests, greenfly and blackfly for example, seem to cope with chilly weather but the insects that eat them don’t!  Some of the flowers are continuing to flower a little late but a few are flowering at about their usual time which has made for unusual combinations.

Meadow Buttercups (Ranunculus acris) on All Saints’ Common

We have a number of ‘commons’ here in East Anglia.  A common is an area of land either owned by a group of people or one person but it can be used by the general public in certain ways such as walking your dog or playing sport.  Some commons and village greens have ‘rights of common’ where it is possible to graze livestock on the land.  If you want to use the common for anything other than walking on it or having a picnic, (for instance, if you wanted to camp there), you’d have to ask permission of the land owner.

This is another view of the common showing one of the unusual flower combinations.  This didn’t come out as well as I’d have liked.

The Common Sorrel is flowering at the same time as the buttercups and for a while it looked as though the field was alight with red flames above the yellow.

Common Sorrel (Rumex acetosa)

Common Knapweed (Centaurea nigra) is also in flower on the common.

As is Yorkshire Fog (Holcus lanatus)

The Elder (Sambucus nigra) is in flower.

The Dogwood (Cornus sanguinea) is in flower too.

Many people dislike the scent of the Elderflower; they describe it as smelling of ‘cats’.  It isn’t a pleasant smell but it is preferable to the smell of Dogwood flowers!

Bittersweet (Solanum dulcamara), also known as Woody Nightshade, is flowering in the hedgerows.

The Pyracantha in our garden is covered in blossom. This is another plant with a strange scent but the bees love it!

I discovered a new plant at the edge of our big pond the other day – a Cyperus Sedge (Carex pseudocyperus), also known as Hop Sedge.

The plant is quite large and must, I suppose, have been there last year without me seeing it.  Its leaves are strap-like, similar to Iris leaves, so I might have thought it was an Iris.  The flowers are unmistakable though.

The flowers are pendulous, like catkins.

Yellow Iris (Iris pseudacorus)

Another new plant to our garden is this Common Marsh-bedstraw (Galium palustre) growing by our corner pond.

One of my favourite flowers is this little one – Creeping Cinquefoil (Potentilla reptans). Its petals are heart-shaped and such a pretty shade of yellow. The creeping refers to its trailing stems that root at the nodes as it grows.

I love Oxeye Daisies (Leucanthemum vulgare) too.

A White Water-lily (Nymphaea alba) on our big pond.

Elinor saw the Kingfisher at the pond a couple of days ago and since yesterday we have  all heard the purring of a Turtle-dove in the trees round the pond.  The temperature has risen to 25 degrees Centigrade and I think it has been too cold up til now for the Turtle-dove.

Female Blue-tailed Damselfly (Ischnura elegans)

Male Blue-tailed Damselfly (Ischnura elegans)

Male Azure Damselfly (Coenagrion puella)

I believe this is a male Four-spotted Chaser (Libellula quadrimaculata)

Greenbottle (Lucilia caesar) on Hogweed (Heracleum sphondylium)

A brightly-patterned Hoverfly (Helophilus pendulus)

Male Black-tailed Skimmer (Orthetrum cancellatum)

I hope to see some more insects now the weather has warmed up.

Thank-you for visiting!

A Suffolk Garden in July – Insects Part 2

Tags

Black-tailed Skimmer, Broad-bodied Chaser, comma, common blue damselfly, common darter, emperor dragonfly, Four-spotted Chaser, gatekeeper, greenbottle, House Spider, insects, Large Skipper, large white butterfly, leopard slug, meadow brown, micro moth, red admiral, robber fly, Roesel's bush-cricket, ruddy darter, small white butterfly, Suffolk

At last, I am now ready to finish showing you all the insects I saw last month.  As with Part 1 of this post, all the insects shown here were photographed in my garden unless otherwise stated.

For most of the month the garden was full of these dragonflies –

Ruddy Darter

Ruddy Darter

Female Meadow Brown butterflies are brighter than the males which often have no orange on them at all.  There were plenty of Meadow Brown butterflies but I never managed to get a clear photo of one with its wings open.  This photo will have to do.

Meadow Brown

With its wings closed, the Gatekeeper butterfly can be confused with the Meadow Brown.

Male Gatekeeper on Scabious flower

The main difference between the two butterflies is the Gatekeeper has two white spots in the eye on the fore-wing but the Meadow Brown has only one.  The underside of the Gatekeeper’s hind-wing is slightly more patterned.

Gatekeeper on Scabious flower

The Gatekeeper is more orange than the Meadow Brown.  The male Gatekeeper has a central patch of dark scent scales that is lacking in the female.  Gatekeepers are very territorial and patrol their home patch, a gateway or stretch of hedgerow, seeing off any rivals.

Male Gatekeeper on Common Nettle

A Red Admiral butterfly is, like the Meadow Brown, difficult to photograph with its wings open.

Red Admiral on Buddleia

Red Admiral on Buddleia

Red Admiral on Buddleia

At this time of year the garden is always full of Small and Large White butterflies.   Fortunately for us, we don’t often grow brassicas and my lovely blue Chicory, which the caterpillars of both white butterflies found tasty, died a while ago.

I think this is a Male Small White butterfly

I think this is a male Large White butterfly

I often have difficulty telling the difference between the two whites.  The black patch on the Large White extends from the wing-tip to at least halfway along the outer edge of the wing but on the Small White it is less dense and doesn’t extend as far.  The female Large White has two black spots on the upper and underside of the forewing.  The male Large White has two black spots on the underside of the forewing only and none on the upperside.  The female Small White has two black spots on the upperside only of the forewing but the male only has one spot which is often faint or even missing.  This is what confuses me!  I’m glad that they  aren’t confused.

There were still plenty of Skipper butterflies during the second half of the month.

Large Skipper on Buddleia

I think this may be a photo of a female as I don’t think I can see any scent glands.

A Comma butterfly

These are so named because of a white comma-shaped mark on the underside of its wing.

Dragonflies continued to fly around the garden.

Broad-bodied Chaser

This may be an immature male Black-tailed Skimmer

A female Common Blue Damselfly

Not a very good photo, but I haven’t been able to get any other pictures of females.

A Four-spotted Chaser

A male Emperor Dragonfly

As you can see from the poor photo, I had great difficulty in getting a picture of this dragonfly.  The male is very large and powerful and this was the only time I saw it at rest.  I had to lean far out over the edge of the pond and I was frightened I would over-balance and fall in the water.  It hardly ever left the pond unlike other dragonflies that search for prey along the hedge and up into the trees.

Female Emperor Dragonfly laying eggs

Female Emperor Dragonfly laying eggs

Female Emperor Dragonfly laying eggs

The female is larger than the male and is mainly green and brown.  The male has a glorious bright blue abdomen.

A male Common Darter

These dragonflies are a paler red than the Ruddy Darter and the abdomen isn’t as constricted near the front.  The females are a yellowish brown.  In both sexes the legs are brown or black with a yellow stripe down the outside.

I have not been able to take many photos of moths this year.

Unidentified micro moth

A Robber Fly (not sure which one) with a victim in its grasp

Greenbottle on unripe blackberry

A female Roesel’s Bush-Cricket

I saw this climbing up the side of the conservatory.

And I saw this inside the garage one evening….

This House Spider was as big as my hand

The last creature in this post, like the spider, isn’t an insect and isn’t at all attractive.  In fact it looks quite horrific but, before you rush off for your gun or other means of disposing of nasty things, stop!!  This isn’t a garden foe it is a friend.  Here it is –

A Leopard Slug

These slugs when fully grown are about 7″ long.  They don’t damage healthy living plants but eat fungi, rotting plants and other slugs, especially those ones that do so much damage.   They have to stay damp to breathe so live in dark, damp places especially piles of rotting logs.  They can live for several years.  Like other slugs and snails they are hermaphrodites but need to mate with another individual.  To mate they climb a tree or other structure and then hang entwined from a branch on a thick strand of mucus.  Both slugs then lay eggs in damp places.  A dark horse among slugs, then.  Who would have thought it!

 

Here be Dragons!

Tags

Aldeburgh Festival, Banded Demoiselle, Black-tailed Skimmer, bouquet, Broad-bodied Chaser, butterflies, damselflies, dentist, dragonflies, Four-spotted Chaser, Greater Bindweed, Hedge Brown, Ian Bostridge, Large Skipper, lavender, moths, Schubert's 'Winterreise', Six-spot Burnet, Small Tortoiseshell, Snape Maltings, Suffolk Punch, The Man of Mode by George Etherege, Thomas Ades, wedding, wedding anniversary

 

Four-spotted Chaser

Our garden is full of dragonflies and damselflies.

Most of the UK was basking in warm sunshine last week; Suffolk was one of the areas which wasn’t.  We spent most of the time under a thick pall of cloud.  There was a strong northerly breeze and some rain, though not much; certainly not enough.  The butterflies and dragonflies only flew when a watery sun appeared through a crack in the cloud, which wasn’t often.  The highest temperature I recorded was 16 degrees centigrade.  The weather started to improve towards the end of the week with the wind changing direction from northerly to a warmer south-westerly.  The clouds then began to disperse.  The weekend was really quite fine and Monday morning was too.  Unfortunately, we had a couple of heavy showers of rain in the afternoon and more of the same overnight.  Today started with thick mist and then it wasn’t too bad until this afternoon when we have had torrential rain and thunder storms.  At least today we have had a good amount of rain which has freshened things up nicely.

Lavender covered in butterflies (mainly Small Tortoiseshells)

Monday 16th was cool and showery and I had to visit the dentist because of a painful tooth.  I had made the appointment a week before when my tooth had been aching for some days.  It continued to hurt until a couple of days before the appointment and then suddenly felt better.  I thought I’d better keep the appointment just in case there was really a problem.  My dentist did her best to find something wrong with my tooth – she x-rayed it and bruised my gum with the x-ray plate.  She poked and prodded it very hard a number of times with that sharp spiky thing dentists use.  She gripped it very hard between finger and thumb and tried to wriggle it and pull it out.  She hit it hard a few times with a blunt metal object but fortunately for me there didn’t appear to be anything wrong.  I left the surgery feeling as though someone had punched me in the face.

Tuesday 17th was a much better day – some sunshine and a strong breeze which dried my washing.

Wednesday 18th was another busy shopping day – firstly with Mum who hadn’t been feeling too well and then some shopping for us. I also collected a quantity of medication from the doctors’ surgery.  Wednesday was also our 20th wedding anniversary and R was due home from working in Gloucestershire that evening.  Quite often he is away from home on our anniversary but this year was nicely different.  He brought me home a bouquet of flowers which was very kind and thoughtful of him.

In recent years we haven’t bought each other gifts but have gone somewhere nice together – a stately home, a beautiful garden – or we have bought something we both wanted – a garden bench, a favourite film to watch together.  This year R suggested we go out for a meal to the place we went to on our first date.  Of course I agreed.  We decided not to go out on the anniversary itself as R would have spent some hours driving and would be tired (as he was).  We booked a table for Friday evening and invited E to come with us.  She is the daughter of our marriage and should therefore be with us to celebrate.  She agreed to come too.

Thursday 19th, Corpus Christi, and though there was a service at church at 9.00a.m. I wasn’t able to go as E had an interview that morning at City College Norwich.  Surprisingly, E was fairly calm and even managed to eat some breakfast before we set off.  I parked in the city centre again and we walked to the college from there as before.  By the time we got to the college E was starting to feel very apprehensive and when I left her outside the interview room she was very frightened and extremely pale.

She re-appeared an hour and a half later having had an interview and done a short maths and English test.  I was so proud of her and pleased that she had been able to go through with the interview and test.

E has had many problems to deal with in her seventeen years.  She has scoliosis (curvature of the spine) and has had problems with her feet.  Both of these problems are now well under control but getting help initially was very difficult.  E had to contend with a lot of bullying at school too.  Always of a nervous disposition and insecure she developed chronic anxiety which brought on panic attacks.  She was helped extremely well in her Middle School but when she went up to High School the problem got so bad that eventually she was unable to attend school and wasn’t able to take her GCSE exams last summer.  Eventually we found a really good therapist who taught her how to control her anxiety.  She still has a long way to go but she has started to make a life for herself.  The City College has a course for young people who have had interrupted education and they know exactly how to treat these young people with kindness and understanding.  Their dignity is preserved and they are not made to feel guilty or odd.  You can understand now why I was so proud of my dear daughter.

R and I spent an hour or so cleaning the church again that evening.  There was to be a large wedding there on Saturday and the florist was coming to decorate the church on Friday so we had to do the cleaning first.  We decided to buy take-away fish and chips for our evening meal to save having to cook.  A real treat!

Friday 20th was a brighter day and got gradually warmer until the afternoon was quite summery.  I had a blood test in the morning then did yet more shopping.  The afternoon was spent doing housework – very tedious.  Our anniversary meal was very pleasant.  The inn looks very different from how it was when R and I went there in January 1993.  A large dining area with plenty of glass in the roof and large floor to ceiling glass windows has been added on at the back.

Saturday 21st.  A lovely summers day at last.  We were so pleased for the couple getting married today.  I went to collect some supplies from the chemist and R did some gardening – mainly hedge-cutting – and then went off on his bike to perform his Church Warden duties at the wedding.   The bride had arrived in an open carriage drawn by two Suffolk Punch horses.

The church had been beautifully decorated with flowers.

Sunday 22nd was another fine day and R and I went to church at St. James’ church.  I cooked our main meal as soon as we got home instead of in the evening as we usually do.  This was because I was going with my mother to a concert at Snape Maltings in Aldeburgh.  The Aldeburgh Festival is taking place at the moment and this year is its 67th since it was started by the composer Benjamin Britten and his partner Peter Pears.

Snape Maltings. Photo courtesy of The Daily Telegraph

Tickets for concerts at Snape are not that expensive but it is almost impossible to get them.  If one has enough money to be able to afford to become a Friend of Snape,  and the cheapest annual payment to become a Friend is £300, one can buy tickets earlier by weeks than the hoi-polloi like me.  All the best tickets are snapped up very quickly and us poor commoners are left with the crumbs.  I have decided to pay £15 a year so that I am e-mailed the programme of concerts.  This means I get to see the list of concerts a day before the people who receive the programme by post.  £15 for an e-mail!!

The concert that Mum and I attended was very good and I feel very lucky to have been there.  Ian Bostridge, tenor, accompanied by Thomas Ades on the piano performed Schubert’s song cycle ‘Winterreise’.  We have been to hear both these wonderful musicians before so knew that we were going to have a good concert.  I studied ‘Winterreise at school and grew to love it then so was really looking forward to the evening.  The concert started at 8.00p.m. and the whole cycle was sung without an interval.  We set off for home just after sunset and were home before dark.

Monday23rd was a busy day with lots of washing and shopping.

I took Mum out shopping today instead of on Wednesday as I am going to see A in Sheffield tomorrow and will be staying there for two nights, coming back home on Friday.  A is performing in another play and I am looking forward to seeing her in it.  I decided it might be nice to stay in Sheffield a little longer than usual as I would like to see the Botanical Garden which A says is very pleasant.  I might also do a little shopping!  A is still trying to finish her PhD but everything seems to be conspiring against her.  She recently had a fall and broke one of her fingers which has not made her PhD typing marathon easy.  She is unemployed again and has no income which is very worrying for her.  The play she will be performing in is ‘The Man of Mode’, a Restoration comedy written by George Etherege.

As I said at the beginning of this post, the garden is full of dragonflies and damselflies.  The garden is also full of Small Tortoiseshell butterflies especially, and a few other butterflies and insects.

Skipper butterfly

I think this is a Large Skipper.

Small Tortoiseshell

Small Tortoiseshell

I have included two photos of these butterflies to show the difference between a newly emerged butterfly and one that has been flying for a few days.  The second one is so bright!

Six-spot Burnet moth on lobelia

Dragonfly

Four-spotted Chaser

Meadow Brown butterfly

Female Banded Demoiselle

Greater Bindweed flower with unidentified micro-moth and pollen beetle

The Greater Bindweed flower is the largest of our native flowers.

Male Broad-bodied Chaser

Male Black-tailed Skimmer

The last photos I am including are of Small Tortoiseshells again.

The reason I am including this photo is because…..

….of this!!