I've read there's a few Bee Orchid (varieties?) currently on the hill that they've called Wasp Orchid I'd like to see an image if you could get one. They are strange plants for sure, they mimic a bee to attract bees but they are self pollinating, would they even need the bees to pollinate them? I h...

I bought a 16GB SDHC card of play.com and it didn't work well for ages but the £4 price probably matched that, but somehow now it works fine. I do find that premium cards work best over cheap ones that can fail, had that happen a number of times. I have a 512MB SD card that I have had for 5 years an...

I remember reading on Garden Moth Scheme report that (either last year or 2009) some had caught Yellow-Line Quakers in spring in some areas of UK, those are autumn flying species so something was odd there. There was a record in the Republic Ireland (in Dublin I think) of a Holly Blue flying in late...

5C here at moment, should not be like this, frosty past few nights here. Its been raining but not enough to make a real difference and the tree leaves are turning brown and looks like autumn, not summer. My blackthorn only has a single tiny green leaf and my sessile oak has small leaves, not normal ...

Silver-Ground Carpet for me (for the first one in the second set of images), seen so many recently, commonest moth around here so seen many undersides of it. One looks like it could be common carpet (second image of first set of images) if both are the same moth, then its Silver-Ground.

Quite interesting, nice images ...we have no Adonis blue here but are common blue prone to much variation? Have a good population not far from my house at a NT nature reserve, so may pay them a visit next sunny day (if there is one anytime soon)

I have seen 2nd Generation OTs in August before, but that was once a few years ago, but not sure what they could feed on then but they use many wild crucifers so must be something they could use although I don't know much about when which wild crucifers flower but they can use Hedge Mustard (Sisymbr...

That's very interesting Dave, I thought that broad bordered bee hawks were limited to honeysuckle, snowberrry, etc. Their main foodplants are Galium (Bedstraws) and Honeysuckle. Snowberry is related to honeysuckle but its North American and often used in hedging in UK and quite a few honeysuckle fe...

If it were a broad bordered bee hawk moth, It will use goosegrass since its a type of bedstraw (Gallium), so would hummingbird hawk-moth. I found hummingbird cats on goosegrass and reared them on it before.

Did things turn backwards this year? Warm spring, cold June instead of other way around? Frosty last few nights with temps going as low as 4-6C, it has been raining but not enough to do much real good, looks like autumn here with the amount of browning leaves on trees, even my blackthorn has just on...

Finally saw a butterfly today a red admiral, it was in a flower meadow not far from my house but didn't set long enough to get a photo, it was quickly fluttering over ox-eye daisies. Also found 113 webs of Depressaria daucella on hemlock water-drop wort at the large lake there.

Love your photos Guy, nice and clear. The red algae is quite something, as if the landscape is bleeding. BTW the one below "... and this is what it was like at 2500m:" do you know what the blue flowers are?

Started a butterfly transect today. Doing the transect at a 5 acre fully intact raised bog/fen which is full of wild flowers and trees. There was thousands of water horsetails covering the whole bog except for a patch along the edge. There was also other plants and trees including the very common (a...

For the past 4 years I have spotted Narrow-Bordered Bee Hawk moths. The areas I have found them in are not their typical habitats (improved grassland with wildflower edge bordering mixed forest, forest edge near field and cutover bog, although the last seems a better habitat but lacks its foodplant)...

Nice images Dave. Been strange here, cloudy, very windy, sunny and rainy lately. Have not seen a butterfly in a while, but starting a butterfly transect tomorrow along a field and part of bog land, weather looks good enough, so maybe something will be around. Its not far from a colony of marsh friti...

Was trapping overnight at a National Trust woodland and saw s**t in a bag at the bottom of a tree, almost stepped in it too, lucky I saw it in vegetation, ugh.

My nearest reserve, people do walk their dogs and you find more "little presents" on the side of the path that goes from car park up a hill, so you have to watch where your walking. The leavings are not in the vegetation mostly but the paths, ugh. That's not the real problem, although many...

Both large white and small white have a fork in vein 7, though it is sometimes missing in large white (and very occasionally in small white too). This butterfly has the fork. The feature is very useful for distinguishing between small white and southern small white, which lacks the fork, but doesn'...

I have always thought it was an oily substance they secrete that they get from something in their foodplant called glucosinolates and this makes them distasteful to birds and other predators. This substance in some brassicae (brussel sprouts and cabbage being two) is known to make the plant that has...

I'd agree with small white too. Doesn't large white have a fork in one of its top wing veins?

Had a large white in garden a few minutes ago.