Burning up at the bioblitz...

It's Wednesday August 23rd and looking like a lovely, late summer day. Today there is a 'Bioblitz' in a local village:coordinated by the Medway Valley Countryside Project, who's stated aims are:

• Create, Sustain and Enhance Kent’s Landscape & its wildlife
• Develop, Manage and Support community-based environmental initiatives
• Develop, and Promote life long outdoor learning
• Encourage and Enhance greater access in the outdoors and the corresponding health benefits.

I thought a visit would be apposite...

It was a great way of engaging the children (of whom there were many) and the guided walks seemed popular. I decided against them though, and instead had a short walk of my own to see what I could find. Half a dozen of my finds are shown below. Nothing out of the ordinary, but there were quite a few more that I didn't photograph, and it all added to their overall tally.

I have had several early morning walks with the camera recently. Mostly for the purpose of getting some long-exposure tripod shots: I think it would be fair to say that the results have been, variable and on Monday August 28th all I managed was the following shot of a crop field, and that was taken with my phone...

Just two days later, the same destination of Frittenden, saw the highest temperatures in the whole of the UK for that day: 29.3 deg or 84+ if you prefer Fahrenheit. Here is one of the photographs from an early morning session that I can share...

A Grass Moth

And a tiny Green Shieldbug nymph too...

The Comma butterfly is a real success story, in that it seems to have been able to reverse its decline and is now wide-spread once again. Named of course for the white comma shape on the underside of its hindwings. The jagged edges of the forewings are the reason behind the other common name of 'Angelwings'. 

A Comma Butterfly - Polygonia c-album

Having found the adult butterfly, I was pleased when I spotted a caterpillar; however, once again, as with the puss moth larva I found a while ago, all was not well. On close inspection, I could see an unwanted visitor...

It was this tiny parasitic wasp, which I managed to remove. Yes, I was interfering with nature in some small way, but I wanted to see if I would be in time to save the caterpillar and allow it to form a chrysalis. As you can see in the next photo, it did go on to suspend itself from a nettle soon after. The inset picture is a closeup of the wasp...

It wasn't too much later that it had indeed become a chrysalis, and so if my hunch is right, I may yet get to see the adult butterfly emerging.

All of which brings me back to my last update about the puss moth parasitic larvae. Having seen most become pupae, one remained fairly active and amazingly, seemed to survive without a food source for another 15 days. After which it gradually became increasingly yellow in colour...

It's still around but not looking good now!

I can also now confirm the identity of the 'dancing chrysalis' featured in my last update. It eclosed last week to reveal a fabulous herald moth...

I haven't featured spiders for a while, and as you all love them so much and September (spider month) is just around the corner, I thought I would add a couple of pics of a teeny, juvenile, fence-post jumper. A first for me; not seen anything other than adults until now...

I guess I shouldn't really leave you with images of spiders...nightmares and all that! Here then is something much prettier, they are (empty) lacewing eggs and these are another 'first' for me. Despite searching each year, I have never been lucky until now..