Hardly drought-breaking rain, but a few light showers overnight end exactly 8 weeks without rain. Apart from a few water drops still sitting on the upper surfaces of some leaves you wouldn’t know it had rained, so well has the little rain that did fall been absorbed into the parched surface.

On a cooler, yet very muggy morning, butterfly numbers were up again compared to the weekend with Meadow Brown still making up 90% of the total. Small Heath made up half of the remainder, with a few Small White and Small Copper and one each of Common Blue, Brown Argus and Speckled Wood.

I added a new moth to my Downs list, Rush Veneer (Nomophila noctuella), one of the Crambidae (grass moths). I’m amazed that anything this small migrates, yet this is a long-distance migrant species, arriving in the UK in early July from North Africa and southern Europe.

There was not too much other insect activity. Apart from yet more Striped Shieldbug, I was able to photograph a larva of the Harlequin Ladybird (Harmonia axyridis), a Red-spotted Parasite Fly (Eriothrix rufomaculata) and another of those difficult to identify ichneumon wasps.

                                                                                              <<<< Previous page | Next Page >>>>