bunn

I wandered past the buddleia bush today with camera in hand, and half-raised it to point at a Red Admiral that was flittering past, before deciding it was too far away to make a good photo.  Then I looked down, and this chap landed approximately three inches from the camera lens and began... well.  Posing.  Flexing his proboscis, strutting with his little spiky legs and waving his stalkeyes.   So I photographed him.
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I was looking out over the valley one morning this week, when I heard a huge sound. Not a very loud sound, but the sort of noise that is only made by quite large things. I thought at first it was a train, and then I realised that the nearest station is too far away. It sounded like the train was going past on the track that would once have run across the hillside above our house but that line was closed in the 1960s. Ghost Train!

Then I looked up and realised that the noise was made by an enormous cloud of tiny birds passing overhead, a really huge flock that stretched right across the entire village. Before I could do anything sensible like get some binoculars to try to see what sort of birds they were, they had flown off up the valley and disappeared.

In other news, I offered my visiting butterfly a piece of tissue that I had soaked and rinsed in clean water, then added a few drops of orange juice and a little fructose. She ignored it for a couple of days, but today she is sitting on it with her proboscis poked into the soggy tissue, so I assume my offering has been accepted. There are a few nectar plants in flower in the garden, but I'm guessing she's probably happier indoors until the weather is warmer. She appears to only have four legs, and looking into this, I discover that the Tortoiseshell is one of the Four Footed butterflies, which have reduced forelimbs that are kept tucked up out of the way. I've never noticed that before, even though the garden is often full of tortoiseshells...

I was really delighted to see a big pile of cabbages, with the stall holder flailing around them, trying to hold at bay a group of Cabbage White* butterflies, flutteringly intent on mischief. :-D

* yes, I know that in species terms they are either Large White, or Small White, and 'cabbage white' is incorrect.  In behavioural terms for this particular group, however, I feel that 'cabbage white' was right on the money.

Today it has been monumentally wet and rainy. A thick fog sat around our house all day, through which rain fell with varying enthusiasm. The roads, again, are washing away, not just where the roads have become worn, but also where they have been patched, and where springs have excitedly decided to pop up randomly through the tarmac. Rocks are rolling out of the banks because the soil can't hold them in place, it's so wet.

To cheer myself up, I have got out the photos I took when the sun came out earlier this week, to prove that not all the butterflies have washed away, and sorted through them. I do wonder where they go when it rains.

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