Another Wembury Wander

Wednesday June 20th and despite the grey, overcast sky I headed over to Ford Park Cemetery for a quick walk around to look for butterflies. It was breezy but out of the wind it was warm and humid and I managed to find a painted lady, marbled whites, ringlets, meadow browns, cinnabar moths and a burnet companion flitting about.

Marbled White

Ringlet

Painted Lady

Cinnabar

Burnet Companion

Rabbit

I had a quick look around the white letter hairstreak territory in nearby Central Park but there was no sign of them, not surprising in the breeze and grey skies and maybe a little too early for them. I did however see a good number of peacock butterfly larva feeding on nettles.

Peacock Caterpillars

The next morning a small fan foot that had flown into the bathroom overnight was a nice find, only my second sighting of one in the yard.

Small Fan foot

Small Fan Foot

Friday 22nd June and I headed out to Wembury again on the bus for a walk along the coast before yet another dreaded night shift. It was hot and sunny and as expected there was very little excitement on the bird front with a juvenile green woodpecker flying over the horse fields and a 1st summer Mediterranean gull feeding off the main beach with 2 summer plumaged adults being the highlights. Also seen were cirl buntings, blackcap, whitethroats, linnets, stonechats, a grey heron, a little egret, a curlew, 3 oystercatcher, a buzzard and a rock pipit.

There were plenty of butterflies on the wing - a small copper, a painted lady, speckled woods, small whites, common blues, a small tortoiseshell and a comma were all seen - and I saw my first 6 spot burnets of the year buzzing around but there were no moths in the toilet block.

Speckled Wood

Comma

Small White

Small White

Sunday 24th June and we had a walk around Jennycliff on yet another hot and sunny day. Speckled wood, ringlet, meadow brown, a large skipper, a small tortoiseshell, large white and a brief flyby large fritillary species were all on the wing along with a menacing peregrine over the cliff top which elicited an alarm response from a whitethroat skulking in the bushes.

Small Tortoiseshell

The weather is certainly very settled at the moment with a heatwave looming large but the garden, allotment and general countryside are looking very parched - I hate to say it but we realy could do with some rain soon although when it does eventually arrive it probably won't stop!