A Small White was making the most of the relative high temperature in House #1 today.

I think I had a very brief chat with you Neil as you were just coming down the cinder path through the Taylor Wimpey development towards the Waxwings. You asked me if they were showing well and your photos prove they were. Used to be a great spot for skylarks and whitethroats in summer and mixed fin...

My knowledge of London postcodes isn't great, but in butterfly common name terms, it doesn't really need to be !

Ha ! Yes, I've sent off a few Saturday Times Jumbo Cryptics with the same result as you, Guy. My only ever win was a £3 postal order in 1975 for a joke published in Tiger comic (thankfully the Tiger staff didn't read The Sunday Post , where I'd borrowed it from). My father's weekends in the 70s and ...

I was struggling for a while there Jack as I thought they were different clues (maybe cryptic and quick) to the same word ! I take old copies of the Saturday jumbo cryptic to work in case the weather's bad at lunchtime. This one was from a couple of weeks ago. Kinky stiletto heels for burly trucker ...

No butterflies yet, but right in the middle of a major ongoing housing development here in Hassocks, I finally caught up with waxwings in good light (Friday).

If there's hawthorn berries to be had, waxwings don't seem to care what level of pandemonium is going on around them.

Very interesting ! As mentioned in a previous post I have witnessed a buzzard and barn owl tussling on the ground for what seemed a good length of time (at dusk on the tarmac just outside Bempton Cliffs car park, funnily enough). The buzzard was definitely the aggressor, with the owl taking up an ef...

Yes, I'm very jealous of his camera skills ! There's been a big recent influx of short-eared owls into East Yorks, which is what drew him to Bempton. He lives in Hull, so not too far. He even managed to capture one getting attacked by a Kestrel. Quote from my brother: I don't know who was in the rig...

Good luck to both of you ! I don't do any social media unless this counts (I already have high enough blood pressure), but a lady I work with is on the Waxwing Winter 23/24 Facebook site which she says is very good. I just stick to the Sussex Ornithology Society's Sightings page. It often helps us d...

No butterflies, but came home from work yesterday to find a Twenty-plume Moth in the kitchen. Also lucky enough to bump into a small flock of Waxwings. Incredibly tame birds, only interested in berry-stripping. Photo not great, but through the gloom you can see what they are. I've had to shove the c...

Birds aren't real.

zigzag_wanderer wrote: ↑Sun Jul 30, 2023 10:50 am I've strategically placed ladders at both ends of the house to aid the process.

I should note that even if I did leave them up after use (which I don't), they're for me to use in trying to rescue them rather than for the insects to climb down to safety

Saw my brother recently and he mentioned an interesting photo used for the weather forecast on the BBC local evening news earlier this year (East Yorkshire/Lincolnshire area) sent in by one of their "weather watchers". It was taken at Bempton Cliffs, close to where my mum lives. It's new t...

Green netting placed over the roof of one bay of House #5 at work may provide desired shade for ferns, but it has also created two excellent butterfly/moth (and other insect) traps at either end of the house, where the netting sheet is anchored on string to breeze blocks on the ground. I'm spending ...

Love those photos, Medard ! The first set look almost like they've been painted, amazing. The last shot with talons out is superb, but you must have been seriously pinching yourself after being in just the right spot to capture a harrier between the greylag, and the fact that one of the geese is bei...

Thanks Bugboy, haven't knowingly seen one of those before ! Reading up on them, all seems to match re. size and location (it preferred the grass at midway rather than the taller vegetation). It didn't appear to fly like a cranefly, as the write-up indicates, but it was moving within quite a tight, c...

Walking back from archaeology last Saturday I saw what looked an extremely short damselfly flying in a sunny verge along a narrow country lane. It was no more than half the length of an adult Azure or Common Blue damselfly and flew in a very similar fashion to these, looking for the best spot to lan...

Thanks both. You're quite correct David, I'm sure a few larval/chrysalis/adult stage butterflies and moths would be very glad to have a break from their very local patch shrews ! As a kid my sympathies were always swayed toward the main subject species on The World About Us or similar. If the progra...

Three from work this week.

I reckon the middle one is a Brussels Lace (Cleorodes lichenaria), but very happy to be corrected if not.

S'cuse the state of my fingernails.

Not butterfly related, but I think some of you might be interested in this. I've never been lucky enough to see a train of shrews, where the mother forms the "engine" and her offspring form a line behind her each gripping hold of the tail in front. I've read she does this when their nest h...