One day of sunshine - Clouded Yellow

One day of sunshine and suddenly there are dozens of common blues and wall browns around at Newgale, Small tortoiseshells in my garden in Camrose and a Clouded Yellow flying down the road through Keeston.

Camrose Butterflies

No rarities seen but a local bird cover crop field had thousands of large and small whites last sunday as well as hundreds of newly emerged Painted ladies. The fields were full of butterflies - a rare sight these days!

Butterflies in the Martletwy/Landshipping area

During a regular weekly butterfly transect at Martletwy/Landshipping area - commas, painted ladies, red admirals were all seen in reasonable numbers but no small tortoiseshells this weekend (one or two last weekend, but they still seem scarce). Three silver-washed fritillaries (similar numbers a week earlier) - they seem to be having a good summer. Large numbers of whites (all three common species) and the first clouded yellow of the summer noted.

Speckled bush cricket

We get one or two speckled bush crickets in our garden each year - about 5km south-west of Minwear/Canaston.

Green bugs

Have just had another internet search on these after seeing more this morning - there are quite a few about on knapweed flowers.

This particular species seems to be the potato capsid bug Closteromotomus norwegicus.

Stenotus binotatus females do look similar to my photograph, but the clincher seems to be that the second antenna segment is of similar length to the third and fourth segments combined.

The British bugs site has lots of photographs of lots of species. I don't know how comprehensive it is, but it's the best I've seen so far.

Speckled Bush Cricket

Recent visits to Canaston and Minwear Woods have turned up numerous Speckled Bush Crickets. Has anyone else seen this species much away from the coast?

Another Invasion of Painted ladies on the cards?

Following the invasion of Painted lady butterflies earlier in the year I have recently found a couple of arable fields near Camrose with un-treated margins with plenty of creeping thistle. Almost all of the plants have been heavily eaten by Painted lady caterpillars. There must have been thousands of caterpillars here. Has anyone else noticed the same thing? Perhaps we can expect to see a second wave of this species soon?