A walk round the pond - week 26

The season is hotting up, quite literally.  There were two new dragonflies this week, the first was a male common hawker and I had a brief glimpse of a teneral common darter (I didn't get a photo but I expect there will be more next week).  The hawker was flying constantly so I didn't see it at rest but I did manage a few half decent flight shots

There were more than half a dozen male emperors patrolling and fighting.  Eventually it was so hot that even they stopped for a rest.  This one is showing a few battle scars on its wings.

This one looks a bit fresher and is probably a bit younger.

Denise & Phil came with me on one visit to help me spot things and identify them.  We saw lots of four-spotted chasers, mostly chasing and fighting males but also several mating pairs and ovipositing females.

We saw five species of damselflies - large red (only males now),

common blue,

azure,

blue-tailed (not shown), and emerald.

This hungry furrow orb-weaver spider (Larinioides cornutus) was planning to have two azure damselflies for lunch.

The highlight of the week for me was a hummingbird hawk-moth but it was so fast moving through the grasses that the autofocus couldn't lock on and by the time I had changed to manual focus it was gone.

Another new moth for the year was the five-spot burnet moth of which we saw many.  Its caterpillars live on bird's-foot trefoil.

The cinnabar moths have disappeared.  Their caterpillars live on ragwort but the ragwort is only now coming into flower.  I suspect the moths have already laid their eggs on the young plants so I'll keep an eye out for the caterpillars.

Butterflies this week included small heath,

large skipper,

speckled wood,

meadow brown,

and ringlet.

We found lots of this pink flower which I think is common centaury.

The two swans from last week have moved on again.  The Canada goslings are now stretching their wings and practising take-off.  I expect they will be gone soon.

I found a very weathered shell at the edge of the pond, which I think probably belonged to a great pond snail (Lymnaea stagnalis).

I'll try to get some common darter photos next week.