Summer finds

diamondlil · Jul 11, 2009

So far no luck in finding herps this year, but a few nice things. A Marbled white and a Comma butterfly, a Soldier beetle, and my favourite so far, a type of dung beetle called a Dor beetle.

diamondlil · Jul 25, 2009

Here's a wooley bear caterpillar, either a garden or wood tigermoth baby

diamondlil · Jul 25, 2009

Today I heard the resident kestrels where I walk Rosie having an argument with a pair of magpies and was buzzed by a hoverfly

diamondlil · Jul 25, 2009

More butterflies! A Speckled wood, a Small Heath and a Gatekeeper. I saw some blues, probably Silver-studded but coudn't get near enough for a photo. Rosie was very helpful in flushing them out of the long grass but not so good at letting me get pictures of them.

chad27 · Jul 25, 2009

Like the pic of the fly nice action capture

snakewispera snr · Jul 25, 2009

That Hoverfly pic is excellent.... Great shot.

diamondlil · Jul 25, 2009

Thanks! I love 'The Great Lines'. It's an area of chalk grassland and scrub woods squished between 2 towns. There's an entailment so it can't be sold or developed, there's a beautiful war memorial and the grass is cut once a year to keep the land open. The kestrel nest in the woods, there are skylarks in the long grass and I've often found slow worms and common lizards there. (Not so far this year though)
I just googled the area and found it's got world heritage status, which means some minimal changes for accessability and some areas that are closed off will be reopened.

snakewispera snr · Jul 25, 2009

Thats a great looking structure..
What are the buildings to the side of the memorial, and how far away from civilisation is it?

diamondlil · Jul 25, 2009

I'll get photos of the memorial for you this week, Mike, you'll love it. The buildings are part of the structure, built into the retaining wall. Here's a link to info about the Lines.
http://www.chathamworldheritage.org.uk/index/visiting/3493.htm

The_Thunderer · Jul 25, 2009

Nice pics! You really know your butterflies, don't you? Kewl!

I'd really love to see a kestrel some day... LOL

Thanks for sharing, J9!

diamondlil · Jul 25, 2009

Thanks Fred. I've always been generally interested in natural history, driving my mum crazy with collections of insects, slugs etc, pressed flowers and plants as a child. Before the intermaweb I'd spend hours in the local libraries, and I also studied biology at 'A' level which included having to learn field studies. I've got a fairly good memory for the flora and fauna around where I live but I'm not nearly as good as I was at knowing the latin names.
The kestrels aren't very cooperative this year, I've got the best views of them when I haven't had the camera ready, but I'll keep on trying!

wade · Jul 25, 2009

Great pictures Janine. The hover fly is a one in a million.

Your kestrel looks much bigger than the American Kestrel. Ours is very small.

vetusvates · Jul 25, 2009

Wonderful photographs, Janine. Reminds me of the downside of living in the city.
I like the dung beetle...all black and blue and purply and shiney.

diamondlil · Jul 25, 2009

wade said:
Great pictures Janine. The hover fly is a one in a million.

Your kestrel looks much bigger than the American Kestrel. Ours is very small.

Thanks Wade. The hover fly was buzzing aound my head so I just tried to get the camera close enough to try to focus on it as it zipped around. I'm not sure how the sizes compare but a quick look at Wikepedia (I'm at work so no bird books here!) says the American Kestrel is more closely related to the hobby. I've only seen a hobby once, it was breath-takingly beautiful, taking insects out of the air in a wood in Devon.

diamondlil · Jul 25, 2009

vetusvates said:
Wonderful photographs, Janine. Reminds me of the downside of living in the city.
I like the dung beetle...all black and blue and purply and shiney.

It took me a while to get an ID on the beetle, the pictures I found didn't show just how shiney they are!

Azixs · Jul 25, 2009

The Comma butterfly pic is brilliant, what sort of camera did you use to take that? Thanks very much for sharing!

diamondlil · Jul 26, 2009

Thanks! I've got a Fujifilm Finepix S5800. I really do need to learn how to use it better, I still use all the preset modes rather than manual setings, so I know I could (and should) get better pictures from it if I put the time and effort in.

diamondlil · Jul 27, 2009

For a change I went to the Riverside country park today, and found plenty of food for free, including some heavily fruitng wild plums, plenty of blackberries and damsons that will be ripe later and wild fennel

diamondlil · Jul 27, 2009

I found Bird's foot trefoil and Purple milk vetch, Chicory and Tansy and a beautiful thitstle I need to ID

diamondlil · Jul 27, 2009

I also found a Painted lady butterfly that looked a bit raggedy and worse for wear

Summer finds

Mice! They taste so nice!

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Mice! They taste so nice!

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Mice! They taste so nice!

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Mice! They taste so nice!

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The Devils Advocate

Mice! They taste so nice!

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The Devils Advocate

Mice! They taste so nice!

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Mice! They taste so nice!

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Gamaliel's Principle

Mice! They taste so nice!

Mice! They taste so nice!

New member

Mice! They taste so nice!

Mice! They taste so nice!

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Mice! They taste so nice!

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Mice! They taste so nice!

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