This hoverfly has a middle that lets light through as it flies, and orangey and black bands on its wings that line up with its pellucid middle and black bottom, giving it a strongly banded wasplike appearance despite (to us) being obviously a Dipteran fly. Probably enough to make it a successful Batesian mimic!
For a moment I glimpsed the brilliant indigo of a Banded Demoiselle (Calopteryx splendens), just near Gunnersbury Triangle’s picnic meadow. It was the very first sighting of that species in the reserve: a bit surprising, as it’s a species of slow-flowing rivers. It does occasionally frequent lakes, so perhaps there’s a population near the artificial waterfall over in Chiswick Business Park? I’d better go and have a look!
Scene of the Crime: Someone able to Climb Trees, Carry Nuts, and Crack them Open Swiftly Crime Scene Close-up: Hazelnuts Skilfully Opened, Contents Eaten … we know who the villain is: Grey Squirrel!All’s Well That Ends Well: a Rich Hazelnut Harvest, Still Green and Leafy! If you can’t beat ’em, join ’em: despite the record early morning heat (already 26C at 8am, imagine), I at once went out with a sun-hat and picked all the hazelnuts I could find, leaving one or two for the, ah, wildlife. After all, if a Professional Hazel-Eater says it’s Harvest Time, the sensible thing to do is to believe them. A clue, not only of the Inspector Clouseau sort.Hazelnut Cluster Symmetries: you may think hazelnuts come in twos or threes, but they can come in ones, twos, threes, fours, or even fives, making themselves as symmetrical as they can. So, a two means they’re in a line, three in a triangle, four in a tetrahedron…
TWO slow-worms! Sorry about the image quality, I only held up the refugium for a moment. I think the small one started to move so I put the cover down at once.
Ringlet, a handsome species we’ve hardly seen here, increasingA Peacock butterfly on Buddleia: once a common sight in every suburban garden, now a special treat. We used to call the Buddleia the “butterfly bush”; it would be covered in Nymphalids – Peacock, Red Admiral, Small Tortoiseshell, Painted Lady, sometimes dozens at once.Red Admiral sunning on Birch by the small meadowDefinitely not a butterfly: a newly-emerged Southern Hawker dragonfly stretching its wings just above the main pond amongst the Fool’s Water-cress
Water-Plantain beside the boardwalk: the water table is really low for this early in the summer. Netty failed to find any new-season toadlets around the pond where she’d expect them to be. The leaves are slightly heart-shaped, but nowhere near as arrowhead-like as its cousin the Arrowhead.
Essex Skipper, dorsal view, on the north bank. The dark margin to the wings is diffuse, and the black suffusion extends tapering up the wing veins. The antenna tips seem to be dark all over. Essex Skipper on Bramble leaf. The underside of the antenna tip is black, and again the black suffusion of the veins at the back of the wing can be seen clearly. Distant shot across the Ramp Meadow, but … it’s certainly a Large Skipper, with those distinctive pale spots on the wings. The butterfly is indeed quite a bit bigger than the other Skippers, and the spotted appearance makes it look quite different both in flight and at rest.This little butterfly in side view, on Ragwort, has the underside of its antenna tips brownish, which would make it a Small Skipper. There are helpful comparison photos on the UK Butterflies Essex Skipper page under ‘Similar Species’. However, none of the antenna tips shown there look as dark as any of the Small/Essex skippers shown here. This photo, taken on the 12th of July, shows the antenna clearly. I’d say it was the same species as the last photo, and we can see two things clearly: there’s little suffusion of black up the wing veins, and the antenna is not boldly black-tipped on the underside, both of which an Essex Skipper should have. Nor is the antenna underside specially rufous brown.
Finally on the 8th, walking round with Netty, I saw a Ringlet, its darker wings unmistakably marked with a line of little rings.
The English seem unemotional … except for their passion for nature
