www.ukbutterflies.co.uk

Thanks, Chris, for your kind comments - which have since disappeared!

No change in the eggs today, naturally enough, but I did find this one, curiously laid on a spicule rather than the 'floor' of the nettle:



The emergent caterpillar will have to do a tight-rope walk as soon as it hatches! I'll follow this one with interest (and intervene, à la BBC, if necessary).

Guy

That it certainly a precarious perched egg Guy, like you say the larva is going to have to do a tightrope walk or failing that use some of it's silk and abseil down

Have a goodun

Wurzel

I'm delighted you've managed to get a little butterfly action, Guy, and hopefully you'll be keeping a sharp eye on those ova.

Nice to read about Minnie too. How's she getting on now she's swapped Switzerland for the UK?

Good point, Wurzel - I didn't think of it abseiling down.

Minnie's in her element here, David. A slightly more urban environment means more dogs - and as it turns out, lots and lots of Jack Russells. I know she dreams of chasing chamois, though, as sometimes when she's asleep she snorts and moves her feet and finally makes the little hiccoughing squeaks she always makes when really excited about big game.

No butterflies recently. The red admiral eggs are seemingly still alive but unhatched. Even the ladybirds have disappeared from the garden now, presumably hibernating in cracks and walls and outhouses all around. I recently had this spectabilis form of harlequin looking for somewhere to hibernate in my bedroom:



Very different from the succinea form I posted recently (but almost equally as common).

Other than that, the winter birds have arrived on the Deben - wheeling flocks of dunlin, whistling widgeon and braying brent geese. When it gets cold I look forward to the sea stuff venturing up the river.

Guy

Padfield wrote:Minnie's in her element here, David. A slightly more urban environment means more dogs - and as it turns out, lots and lots of Jack Russells. I know she dreams of chasing chamois, though, as sometimes when she's asleep she snorts and moves her feet and finally makes the little hiccoughing squeaks she always makes when really excited about big game.

Glad to hear she's thriving, Guy. I suppose dogs adapt more quickly than humans, being less demanding in their needs.

Perhaps she'll start concentrating on rabbits rather than bigger 'game' over the next few months?

Thanks, David.

No lep action for me for many weeks now - and indeed I have had very little time even to peruse UK Butterflies. But this afternoon, through the gloom on the Deben, I did manage to get some distant shots of a kingfisher:







I was shooting into the light (I processed the pictures to increase saturation). When the tide is high in the morning, so the sun behind me, I will try for more at the same place.

Guy

Great stuff Guy They do have favoured 'dive spots' so if you can get back you should be in with a chance of more shots I remember when I was at school my Chemistry teacher/birding mentor who hadn't seen a UK Kingfisher didn't believe that they were real. He'd seen all manner of them in Africa but couldn't fathom why there would be a representative species in the cold and drear of the UK It was great when he finally saw one as he showed the true scientific spirit and accepted the unequivocal evidence before him

Have a goodun

Wurzel

Glad you saw the Kingfisher Guy, hope you get more shots of it, I've tried my luck at Penn Flash for years now and did actually see one but sadly didn't get any shots Goldie

What a beautiful flash of colour to brighten up a grey winter's day, Guy.

I sincerely hope you can track it down again.

Thank you, Wurzel, Goldie and David. I tried for better pictures of the kingfisher a couple of days ago but inadvertently used the online tide tables for Woodbridge California instead of Woodbridge Suffolk (curiously, there is a Woodbridge in California and a California in Woodbridge). So Minnie and I got down to the river at 08h47 on the dot only to find extensive mud under the kingfisher's bush! We'll try again ...

It's either been too cloudy or far too cold (today!) for any chance of butterflies on the wing here so I've been turning my camera on birds instead.

Whistling wigeon are a winter feature of the Deben. It is a very smart duck:



Black-headed gulls are still in full winter plumage, but clearly dreaming of spring ...



Here are two perky ringed plovers with a dunlin:



This black-tailed godwit was going deep!



And here a distant group of avocets. This species breeds in lagoons along the coast - at Minsmere, for example - but winters on the mudflats:



Temperatures had dropped to 1°C by the time I went on my evening walk with Minnie and will doubtless dip below freezing tonight, with a clear sky:



Guy

You are no doubt missing your January Queen of Spain Fritillaries,
but stalking a Kingfisher should be absorbing.
Well done with your moon image, very crisp. Even my hand held FZ38
has managed some shots with the moon's craters discernable.

All the best,
Trevor.

Lovely bird shots Guy, and an impressive moon shot. Hope you get to see the Kingfisher again.

We shall miss all your tantalising photos of butterflies in the snow but it seems that you are finding plenty of good birds! I liked that first shot of the Kingfisher by the river

Thank you, Trevor, Andrew and Mike. It's true - I dream of Switzerland literally every night, and usually of butterflies. But I am determined to make the most of the beautiful Suffolk countryside and its creatures. Many of them take me back to my childhood. I'm quite sure there weren't so many avocets on the Deben then, though. Recently I've been seeing these in good numbers on every dog-walk (and we had dogs then, too, so I went on daily walks to the river). Here are some I photographed today, part of a flock of at least 20 and probably more:



The moon is one of my favourite subjects for photography. Each night brings new mountains and craters into relief as the shadow moves around. As it was clear again tonight, I took another shot:



We did our graveyard walk this evening - one of Minnie's favourites. I took a few shots with flash, revealing lots of specks in the air, illuminated by the flash. I'm not sure what they are:



Minnie is on the lead as I don't trust her at night with all the wild animal smells!

Guy

Great bird shots Guy especially the Avocets - they've done really well over the years. I remember when I was a lad having to travel down to Exeter to see them during the winter as their distribution had dwindled so much . Now they're all over the place
I know it must be very hard adapting to the dearth of butterflies the UK has to offer but you're doing admirably

Have a goodun

Wurzel

Thanks Wurzel. I felt sure I didn't see this many avocets when I was a boy, except when I went up the coast to Minsmere.

I'm working hard to get some lep action. Since the leaves fell I must have examined many thousands of oak branches and hundreds of elm branches in search of quercus and w-album eggs, but so far to no avail. I know both species fly - or flew - around here. I just can't seem to locate where they are laying.

So for the time being it's birds and the moon ...

Today's newcomer was goldeneye. I spotted two of these lovely birds far out across the swell tide when I went down today for kingfisher shots (he didn't appear).



I hope I'll see them a little closer in the next few days.

Early on Monday morning there is a total lunar eclipse. The last of these I photographed was from Switzerland, on 27th July 2018, when it was apparently cloudy in the UK. There is a chance of some clear sky on Monday morning so I'll probably get up for it.

Here is the moon tonight, building up towards its grand climax ...



Guy

Still clear here tonight, and though increasing cloud is forecast there may be breaks tomorrow morning for the eclipse.



Somewhere, out on the estuary, this chap will sleep through it ...



Guy

WoW! lovely shot of the Moon Guy, Minnie in the grave yard at night looks a bit spooky Goldie

Thanks Goldie! I'm glad you were up for the eclipse too!

Here are two shots from Woodbridge, the first taken at the beginning of totality and the second right in the middle (before I went back to bed):





What good luck with the weather! It is completely overcast now.

Although the second picture is 'mid-eclipse', that only means she is halfway through the umbra in the direction of travel. I imagine the persistent pale glare at the top right is because she is not halfway through the umbra in the direction transverse to this.

Guy

Total overcast here in Oxon, although I did manage to get up (briefly) and look! I'm pleased you got some good shots