Well, what a piece of luck. I was just inspecting the ragwort where the Cinnabar caterpillars were clustered (by the rail of the Anthill Meadow), and had seen they had grown, and had dispersed from one stalk to three or four — when I saw an Ichneumon approach with the usual dancing flight. Grabbing the camera, I took three photographs, of which the above is the last, and I think the prettiest.

This is the second photo: the wasp has her abdomen curled beneath her body, towards her prey (ok, host, she’s a parasitoid).

And this is actually the first photo, the wasp very close to the caterpillar, her ovipositor sharply folded under her thorax: the caterpillar has just twitched sharply, presumably on being ‘stung’ with an egg now fatally implanted in its body. The cinnabar is aposematic, full of bitter and poisonous chemicals, which don’t protect it against this sort of attack, evidently.

Down by the pond there were plenty of Azure damselflies, one Common Bluetail, and some really tiny newly-metamorphosed froglings hopping about in the mud. A Small Skipper perched obligingly on a Yellow Iris leaf, not far from a plump Iris Sawfly larva.

Down at the Picnic Meadow, ignoring a picnic and dropped bicycle in the entirely dry brown grass, an Essex Skipper visited some Bramble flowers. It’s just like the Small Skipper, but without the orange on the antennae.  A Meadow Brown sat in the grass.

In the woods, a Holly Blue flew high, near a Holly tree. A Small White completed the butterfly tally for the walk.