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A Suffolk Lane

~ A diary of my life in rural north Suffolk.

A Suffolk Lane

Tag Archives: small white butterfly

Garden Visitors

03 Tue Feb 2015

Posted by Clare Pooley in Insects, Rural Diary, wild animals

≈ 25 Comments

Tags

Brown Hawker dragonfly, butterfly, cuckoo bee, dragonflies, Field vole, Flesh Fly, flies, garden, ichneumon wasp, Large Yellow Underwing moth, micro moths, moths, Small Tortoiseshell butterfly, small white butterfly, Southern Hawker dragonfly, Tachina fera fly, wildlife

I will continue to post last year’s photos while this winter weather continues.  I am away from home for a good part of the day; certainly the part of the day with the best light for taking pictures.  We haven’t been out anywhere recently either, so nothing much to show or tell you.

IMG_3881Vole (640x480)

Rear end of a vole. I think this may be a Field Vole (Microtus agrestis) rather than a Bank Vole (Clethrionomys glareolus).

IMG_3882Vole (640x480)

Front end of a vole.

This vole was hiding behind the wheel of the hose-pipe cart.  In fact, the shots were taken just a couple of weeks ago but I was unable to add them to the other posts I’ve published this year.  Field Voles are aggressive and noisy rodents and like to live in damp and tussocky grass.  Exactly!  Our garden is full of that at the moment.

008Bees on chive flowers (640x480)

Bees on Chive flowers

I let most of my herbs flower as I prefer to see the insects and flowers to having perfect tasting herbs.

009Cuckoo bee Psithyrus vestalis on chive flower (640x480)

I believe this is a Cuckoo Bee (Psithyrus vestalis) on Chives.

005Micro Moth (640x480)

A micro moth I found in grass. I haven’t yet discovered what it is called.

001Micro moth (640x497)

Another micro moth seen on a wall. I apologise for the shot being out of focus.

042Brown Hawker (640x488)

A Brown Hawker dragonfly. This is the only photo I managed to get of it and it blends in so well with the dead leaf it was perching on. This is our only Hawker with amber wings and has prominent yellow stripes on its thorax. These can just be seen above the wings. I believe this is a female.

047Tachina fera on marjoram (640x427)

Tachina fera on Marjoram.  The larvae of these flies are parasites of saw flies and other caterpillars.

048Small tortoiseshell on marjoram (640x427)

Small Tortoiseshell butterfly (Aglais urticae) on Marjoram

049Small tortoiseshell on marjoram (640x427)

Small Tortoiseshell butterfly on Marjoram.

050Small tortoiseshell on marjoram (640x427)

Small Tortoiseshell butterfly on Marjoram.

 

051Poss ichneumon wasp Amblyteles armatorius (640x485)

This is an Ichneumon wasp (possibly Amblyteles armatorius but I have my doubts about this ID). It is on Bronze Fennel.

053Flesh fly and ichneumon wasp (640x430)

Ichneumon Wasp and Flesh-fly (Sarcophaga carnaria) on Bronze Fennel.

011Moth (640x480)

Unknown moth.  Angle Shades moths (Phlogophora meticulosa) fold their wings like this but I am not sure that they are this dark in colour.

004Small white (640x427)

A rather chewed Small White butterfly (Pieris rapae).

012Large Yellow Underwing (640x480)

Large Yellow Underwing moth (Noctua pronuba)

011Female southern hawker (640x427)

Southern Hawker dragonfly (Aeshna cyanea) – female.

Best wishes to you all!

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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A Suffolk Garden in July – Insects Part 2

17 Sun Aug 2014

Posted by Clare Pooley in Insects, Rural Diary

≈ 22 Comments

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 –

047Ruddy Darter (640x427)

Ruddy Darter

003Ruddy darter (640x427)

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.

048Meadow Brown (640x427)

Meadow Brown

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

056Gatekeeper on scabious (640x427)

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.

057Gatekeeper on scabious (640x427)

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.

006Gatekeeper (640x427)

Male Gatekeeper on Common Nettle

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

014Red Admiral (640x427)

Red Admiral on Buddleia

021Red Admiral (640x427)

Red Admiral on Buddleia

018Red admiral (640x427)

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.

008MSmall White (640x427)

I think this is a Male Small White butterfly

008White butterfly on buddleja (640x427)

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.

038f Large Skipper (640x427)

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.

037Comma (640x427)

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.

032Broad-bodied chaser (640x427)

Broad-bodied Chaser

036Possibly immature m. Black-tailed skimmer (640x427)

This may be an immature male Black-tailed Skimmer

003Damselfly (640x434)

A female Common Blue Damselfly

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

007Four spotted chaser (640x440)

A Four-spotted Chaser

011Male emperor dragonfly (640x426)

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.

014Female emperor dragonfly (640x445)

Female Emperor Dragonfly laying eggs

015Female emperor dragonfly (640x460)

Female Emperor Dragonfly laying eggs

016Female emperor dragonfly (640x498)

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.

017Common darter (640x462)

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.

003Micro moth (640x480)

Unidentified micro moth

006Robber Fly with victim (640x411)

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

009Greenbottle on unripe blackberry (640x431)

Greenbottle on unripe blackberry

030Cricket (640x480)

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….

010Spider (640x480)

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 –

002Leopard slug (640x480)

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!

 

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High Summer Walk 2

06 Wed Aug 2014

Posted by Clare Pooley in Insects, plants, Rural Diary, trees, walking, weather

≈ 12 Comments

Tags

Bird's-foot Trefoil, bramble, bulrush, cardinal beetle, cat's-ear, common knapweed, cuckoo bee, dewberry, greater plantain, hazelnuts, hedge bedstraw, hemp-agrimony, Hoverfly, meadow brown butterfly, poppy, robin's pincushion, rowan, small white butterfly, spear thistle, speckled wood butterfly, straw baling, the Beck, the Washes

Before I continue my walk, I’ll update you on the local harvest scene.  Yesterday, all the farms here were extremely busy working on the fields because rain was forecast for today.  I was listening to combine harvesters working well into the small hours.  I think the last tractor to roar past our house with its laden trailer of grain was at about 2.00 a.m.  The rain duly came just a few hours later and this morning was very wet.  On my way to collect Mum for our weekly shopping trip I had to slow the car to a crawl with the wipers going very fast as I couldn’t see the road because of the torrents.  There were some very deep puddles and water was bubbling up from the drains in the villages we passed through.  I was about to say that this afternoon has been dry and bright when I heard that familiar pitter-patter of rain on the leaves outside and had to rush outside and close the garden shed.

002Straw baling

Straw baling yesterday.

The tractor pulls a baling machine up and down the field which sucks up the straw and packs it into bales which emerge from the back of the machine and are then tossed onto the field.

006Straw bales

The finished job

Last week I took a couple of photos of a field at the other end of our lane.  The farmer there was using a different type of baler. 010Straw bales 011Straw bales

012Ploughed field

I noticed that the field on the other side of the lane had had its first plough

This morning, before I went out, the field at the back looked like this – 001Straw bales a.m. and when I got home, it looked like this – 004Straw bales p.m. So, some progress had been made despite the wet weather.

Back to my walk …

The Hedge Bedstraw is still in flower. 051Bedstraw

052Knapweed and bedstraw

Bedstraw and Common Knapweed

The Washes were showing signs that we had had a lot of rain recently.  The road here often floods as it is next to the Beck and in a little valley. 046The washes 062The washes   The Beck was flowing quite nicely but was very overgrown and difficult to see.

066The Beck - reflection

Reflections in the Beck

058Poppy

Common Poppy

064Robin's pincushion

A ‘Robin’s Pincushion’ – a gall on wild rose plants

071Hazelnuts

The hazelnuts in the hedgerow are ripening

073Greater plantain

Greater Plantain

People with lawns do not like either the Greater or the Hoary Plantain as they are very persistent and can survive crushing and tearing.  New growth comes from the base of the plant.  Birds love the seeds and when caged birds as pets were more popular, people used to gather the dried seed-heads for them.  Another name for this plantain is Rat’s Tail. 084Male meadow brown & strange red ball on leaf I tried many times, unsuccessfully, to photograph this male Meadow Brown butterfly but the camera was having none of it and kept focusing on the rose leaf.  So, I have gone with it because of the little red ball on the leaf.  Is this another type of gall or is it the very first stage of a Robin’s Pincushion? I was looking at all the brambles in the hedge and noticed these – 086Dewberries They are dewberries – a relative of the bramble/blackberry.  The flowers are larger and the fruits too, which have a bloom to them.  The leaves have three leaflets.

088Bramble

Here is bramble with a visiting bee

091Rowan

Rowan or Mountain Ash berries – a sign of the approach of autumn

092Bees on thistle

A Spear Thistle with a Cuckoo Bee (L) and a Hoverfly (R)

094Bulrush This is the Great Reedmace or as it is now known, the Bulrush.  Sir Lawrence Alma-Tadema painted ‘Moses in the Bulrushes’ and showed the baby in amongst a clump of Reedmaces.  Since then the Reedmace has been known as the Bulrush.  The brown sausage-like part of the flower is female and the narrow spire at the top is male.  In the Lesser Bulrush there is a gap between the female and male parts of the flower.

095Greater bird's foot trefoil

I think this is Greater Bird’s-foot-trefoil. The flower stalks were very long.

079Two white butterflies

Two white butterflies – I think they are both Small Whites but as they were both battered and faded I can’t be sure

097Speckled wood

A Speckled Wood butterfly

099Cat's ear and agrimony Cat’s-ear and Agrimony 100Hemp agrimony Hemp-agrimony.  This is a member of the daisy family – Agrimony is a member of the rose family.  Early herbalists wrongly classed this plant with true Agrimony.  The leaves of this plant look like cannabis leaves hence the ‘hemp’. 101Hemp agrimony with cardinal beetle and a sawfly Cardinal Beetle and a saw-fly visiting the Hemp-agrimony I was going to return to the Hemp-agrimony a few days later to look at it again once the flowers had all come out.  Unfortunately, the common was mown the next day and all the flowers had gone.  The following photos are of a large clump of them that I see on my way to my mother’s house. 008Hemp agrimony They are tall plants – about 4-5 feet tall – and I think they look beautiful. 009Hemp agrimony   The walk I took was only about a mile in length – I was pleasantly surprised to find so many things to look at in such a small area.

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I talk about what it's like living in a quiet part of Suffolk. I am a wife, mother and daughter, a practising Christian and love the natural world that surrounds me. I enjoy my life - most of the time!

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