www.ukbutterflies.co.uk

Always sad to see summer drawing to a close, but there's still plenty to see during August....

Visiters to my garden.
https://jamesgibbs6929.zenfolio.com
Some more visitors to my Garden.
The Bumble is of most interest ,I presume it's a queen because of its size so I took some pics ,when seen on screen it has what may be parasites , can someone with experience and knowledge comment please? More Common Blues, the most that I have seen in the Garden.
A selection of butterflies and insects seen over the last two weeks.seen.

Plenty of tortoiseshell, peacock and red admiral in my Aberdeen garden.....but no painted lady yet

Medard, your queen Bombus terrestris has what are known as phoretic mites. These are relatively harmless to the bee, though this is a heavy load. Some drop off on flowers & attach to other bees.

Nice shot of the Hornet Hoverfly, Volucella zonaria, too-our largest hoverfly whose eggs are laid in the nests of social wasps/Hornets, where the larvae feed on debris & the odd wasp grub!

Nice butterfly shots too.

Tortoiseshells are in good numbers at the moment. This prime example yesterday at Cawdor brought back memories of my first ever close up of a Tortoiseshell as a six year old in 1945. Click on photo to see bigger version. I was enthralled by the rows of blue half moons which seemed to be such a spectacular but unexpected adornment.

Jack

Returned to my local Heathland for a final try to get a photo of a Large Checkered Skipper. I found the same Long-tailed Blue still defending his territory, Short -tailed Blue, a first sighting there of a Grayling and, finally a Large Checkered Skipper who sat still for just a second - shame the photo’s not better!

Visiters to my garden, part 2.
https://jamesgibbs6929.zenfolio.com

Medard, your queen Bombus terrestris has what are known as phoretic mites. These are relatively harmless to the bee, though this is a heavy load. Some drop off on flowers & attach to other bees.

Thank You aeshna5 a most helpful reply, Mrs medard was mightily relieved that Queen Bumble would not suffer any harmful effects from her unwanted guests.

Yesterday late afternoon I disturbed a beautiful Belle dame / Painted Lady / Vanessa cardui. It took wing and fortunately it quickly settled on our pavings, just perfect.. The worn Speckled Wood is a first for the Garden. A slight increase in insect activities but numbers way below last year.
Bumble's numbers are holding up and are very active all day.
There are three Common blues.
Two Hawker dragonflies , probable Migrant Hawers and one Common Darter.
Picture from my website records. A flying visit from a peacock Three Gatekeepers and a favorite a Small Copper.

Deborah wrote: ↑Wed Aug 03, 2022 6:18 am...and, finally a Large Checkered Skipper who sat still for just a second...

Really envious of that one, Deborah. I've still to see it (always in the wrong place at the wrong time).

The sun came out for a couple of hours this afternoon and so did the butterflies. Sandridge Common, Wiltshire

i went to Sharpenhoe today and was delighted to see this Hummingbird Hawk Moth:
i saw another similar one at Sundon a few miles away today as well.

This morning was mostly about Clouded Yellows with 6 seen together. Beacon Hill, Wiltshire

Stevieb wrote: ↑Thu Aug 04, 2022 1:19 pmThis morning was mostly about Clouded Yellows with 6 seen together. Beacon Hill, Wiltshire

Excellent, Steve.

There have been a few reported near Cardiff lately so maybe one or two will turn up near me soon!

There's a photograph of a dead female Purple Emperor on the Colchester Natural History Society Facebook page. It looks completely spent from egglaying. The observer saw it in Friday Woods. "It just fell from the sky and landed by our feet. It was dead."

A Small Heath (I think!) aberration nolkeniana at Norton Green near Stevenage today. Any thoughts anyone?

ATB

Peter

Bits'n'bobs grab bag from last week.

First few are from a walk around Old Lodge, the rest from work.

No water in the smaller ponds at Old Lodge unfortunately, but did see male and female Small Red damselfly and plenty of Brown China-mark moths.

The insect I've marked as "Any Ideas ?" I'm struggling to put in a broad taxa group ! So any help appreciated as always.

Naturespot tells me the maggot stage of the colourful Nowickia ferox tachinid fly develops inside the Dark Arches moth, eating it from within, and then emerging to pupate. There were certainly plenty of Dark Arches moths around at work earlier.

I'm now wondering if my unidentified "digger wasp" is actually a tenthredo sawfly !

It looks pretty good for the female Plantain Wasp-sawfly (Tenthredo omissa) shown here:

https://www.flickr.com/photos/63075200@ ... 162671846/

Also, just had a HH-m on the buddleia. At least with these there's a bit more of an excuse for out of focus photos

Well, another warm weekend with another heatwave looming before we get some rain. I fear the damage may already be done for some species though. I visited Bookham in the hope of some BH on Saturday, and after much searching finally coming across two females, which makes a grand total of four so far reported there this year that I'm aware off, looks like a lean year for them. The White Admiral situation does on the face of it look rather dire. I struggled to find any Honeysuckle that hasn't been turned to brown crispy leaves. I found two abandoned feeding leaves but no larvae. I can only hope some of the earliest laid eggs managed to make it through to third instar before their food dried up, although I found the first larvae on the 8th of July still eating eggshell, which gives very little wriggle room even for the fastest growing larvae. Much of the Sallow is looking rather sorry for itself now too, getting close to also turning crispy

With large parts of railway replaced with buses this weekend, making many of my other favoured late season sites not particularly appealing to get to, I went further afield today and using google maps I decided on a little adventure in tracking down Neil's new SSS site. I found it to be a very easy and pleasant walk from the well known North Stoke site. Full reports sometime near Christmas

Hello Zig-zag ,
RE; Your post " any ideas " .........I found something similar a year or two back ........take a look at page 6, on the "Identification " forum , i think i titled it "anyone do Ants ".
Regards Allan.W.

I went to Ballard Down (Swanage) yesterday to look for 2nd brood Adonis Blue, but cound not find any, so had to make do with seeing this very pristine Clouded Yellow - there seems to be quite a lot of them in our area near Swanage at the moment, including 3 in my garden in the last couple of weeks. The late afternoon sun was really showing up its yellow colour and the scabious on which it was nectaring.

Southern Small White mannii

For the past several weeks I have been seeing "small" whites in huge numbers - greater numbers than I have seen in my entire life. Could they possibly be mannii? They have been recorded from northwest Germany, not an impossible distance across the North Sea from Scotland. T

here was a lot of egg laying by "whites" on Curly Kale outside a farm shop this morning. I don't like it as a vegetable, but I bought some which is now in a vase in my garden. You never know!

Jack