CHASING INSECTS

Plenty of sunshine throughout Sunday 30th at the country park for insect activity. This female broad-bodied chaser was resting on a bramble stalk along a ditch during the morning. A male with the blue body was seen in the same area earlier on by Steve Entwistle - the same location where broad-bodied was seen last year too. Another female was flying about yesterday just inside the park entrance. Also noted yesterday was a male hairy hawker, emperor and a female black-tailed skimmer along with blue-tailed and azure damselflies.

A good variety of butterflies were noted through the day with 3 common blue, 1 holly blue, 1 small skipper, 4 large skipper, 15 small heath, 6 speckled wood, 20 meadow brown, 1 red admiral and 4 small tortoiseshells.

A couple of the eye-catching six-spot burnet moths were resting amongst the long grass, freshly emerged from their pupal cases. Judging by the amount of other pupal cases attached to the long grass stalks, there should be a reasonable emergence of adult six-spots over the next month.

Patches of ox-eye daisies stand out amongst the long grass next to clumps of greater knapweed just coming into flower. Meadow browns and large skippers were feeding on the purple flowers.

It was almost too hot for any bird activity with the songsters much quieter now. Lesser whitethroat, whitethroat were singing in the park while 3 reed warblers were singing in the reeds. On the fields 7 lapwing, little egret, 20+ mallard, 3 teal and a shoveler were noted. The male kestrel was seen taking food into the nestbox. There was the nice sight of a water vole swimming along the edge of the dyke, disappearing into a burrow on the waterline.

In the evening two corn buntings were sitting on wires over Chapmans Lane, 20 swifts were flying around their nesting houses in Upland Road, while at dusk a little owl was perched on a sign at the top of Waldegraves Lane.

The previous day Steve noted at Gyants Marsh, common buzzard, peregrine and the garden warbler singing. Common blue, meadow brown, large white, large skippers were some of the butterflies seen on the wing here.

The moth trap operating through Saturday night produced 80 moths of 25 species including the first buff arches, pictured above. This common moth has caterpillars that feed on bramble of which there's plenty at the park.

Some of the other moths recorded included elephant hawk, lime hawk, peppered, garden carpet, cinnabar, sandy carpet, clouded silver, common white wave, white point, angle shades, marbled minor, turnip, dark arches and snout.