Spectacle Moth

Here's a freaky reliable friend to the Moth Light at the moment. The Spectacle moth is easy to overlook until you get a closer look at this zany fake eyes. I can expect to find one or two most nights at the moment, so probably fairly common around Shadoxhurst.

Scorched Wing

Here's another common June visitor to the Shadoxhurst garden. Once seen never forgotten -it's both fun with its funky upturned back and burnt paper appearance, but also beautiful with its laced patterning and brown town and white hues.

Angle shades

Angle shades is another once seen, never forgotton Moth. It's easily identified part WW11 Lancaster bomber meets 21st century Stealth bomber appearance, gives hope to all casual Moth recorders that they haven't forgotten everything since last summer or indeed the last time they had the moth trap out.

White Ermine Moth

This is a common Moth on the wing at the moment, and extraordinarily beautiful, too. It has this 'play dead' trick which always works on me. Caterpillars, I think, are to be found on nettles, something we have in abundance at the back of the garden.

Mystery Garden Bug - Hawthorn Sawfly

I found this 'beast' sitting rather clumsily on grass stems on a bank down at the back of the garden. This morning was rather overcast and much cooler of late, and I thought it may have been simply sunning itself. It seemed docile but menacing, with large exaggerated bronze waxy wings (reminiscent of the infamous 'cleg' fly) and a pair of beautifully sculptured black antenae. However, the eyes are completely wrong for this species. It's as big as a medium size bee and very hairy.

With the help of Google, I now know this to be a Hawthorn Sawfly, harmless and distributed over the British Isles but more common in the South. Once again, I'm always amazed what new discoveries we might find in our gardens. An hour later the fly had gone. Will we ever see one again? Who knows!

Hobby - watching the Starlings

A welcome visit over the garden this morning was made by this fine Hobby. I was alerted to its presence by these Starlings up on the the TV aerial.

Great spotted Woodpecker - beauty in death

Sadly, today we found a dead young woodpecker on roof tiles below our bedroom window. It had collided into the window possibly because it could see through to the other side of the house through another window at the front of the room. I feel a little guilty about this as there's something really bad when one feels directly related to an animal's death no matter how tenuous the link.

On a happier side, I've found two GS woodpecker nests close by in Shadoxhurst in the last week both with fledglings calling, so there's going to be plenty of woodpeckers around. I also found a Chaffinch nest with chicks in this morning to. It's in a triangle of finches nests (Goldfinch and Greenfinch) all within twenty feet of each other. To ease the guilt I'm feeling I can tell you that these nests are only there because we have allowed the Ivy and Dog Rose to grow tall and wild, creating the nesting conditions they need.

The moon high in the south tonight