Mike's Natural Musings

Wednesday, 25 June 2014

A Day of Emeralds at Messingham.

An excellent day at Messingham Sand Quarry Lincs Trust Reserve today. Despite a poor forecast earlier in the week, we had a a warm day of mixed sun and cloud. We saw a few dragonflies: brown hawker, common darter, black tailed skimmer and southern hawker but only managed pictures of the a newly emerged southern. There were plenty of damselflies about and we enjoyed photographing the emeralds, although the males were hard to come by. On the butterfly front there were plenty of ringlets, meadow browns and large skippers on the wing with the odd brimstone, speckled wood and red admiral. We heard a buzzard calling in the distance and black caps and garden warblers were vocal.

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Common Blue Damselfly.

Emerald Damselfly, Male.

Emerald Damselfly, Female.

Fox and Cubs

Large Skipper

Longhorn Beetle

Meadow Brown

Large Skipper

Southern Marsh Orchid

Scorpion Fly

Southern Hawker

Thistl

Tuesday, 17 June 2014

A Day of Butterflies and Moths.

It was overcast and chilly when Roger and I drew into the lower car park at 6.30 at Red Hill reserve. We had gone looking for Marbled White butterflies. Roger and Mark Johnson, another wildlife photography colleague had found a few newly emerged ones the previous week and we hoped that there would be more about by now. Mark had already been there since 5.00 am and had found nothing so things didn't look too promising. However, the pyramidal orchids which had only just been opening up on my previous visit were now looking good and it wasn't long before we found both marbled white and common blue. In the cool conditions they were not very active and afforded good opportunities for photography.

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Bee Orchid

Burnet Moth Pupal Case

Burnet Moth Catterpillar

Common Blue

Marbled White

Pyramidal Orchid

Having secured shots of the marbled white, it was time to head for pastures new and Roger and I opted for Southrey Wood, where we hoped to find the white admirals that we knew to be on the wing. By now the sky had cleared and the weather had turned sunny and warm. We certainly found white admirals but photographing them was a different matter as they tended not to settle very often and were very flighty when they did. Still we both managed acceptable photographs and I was pleased with my closed wing shot as I feel that the underwing is the more attractive than the upper in these insects. Other butterflies were present and we also saw several dragonflies: broad bodied, emperor, brown hawker and banded demoiselle damselfly but we only managed to photograph the demoiselle.

Banded Demoiselle

Common Spotted Orchid

Large Skipper

Meadow Brown

Ringlet

White Admiral

After some time we decided to move on to nearby Chambers Farm Wood where we hoped to find broad boardered bee hawkmoths in the butterfly garden, maintained by the Butterfly Conservation Society. We also called in at the small Butterfly Conservation reserve of Snakeholme Pit on the way. This was my second visit to this reserve and again I found it not awfully productive, although I did find bee orchid in excellent condition.

Bee Orchid

Six Spot Burnet Moth

Six Spot Burnett Moth

Mignonette

Ox-Eye Daisy and friend.

When we arrived at Chambers, we found the garden a hive of activity with a large number of volunteers working on maintenance. This was good to see and made the donation to the collection pot as we left well worthwhile. We had a field day here. There were several hawkmoths feeding on the valerian in the warm sunshine. To say they were frustration to photograph though is putting it mildly. Still, I was delighted with the large number of pleasing shots I managed. As these are my first pictures of this moth I make no apology for including them all.