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  1st May and the weather has been a
little overcast all day but there has been no rain. Hardly a real spring day
but sufficient to bring out the butterflies in the early afternoon. On
walking round the garden I noticed that the small yellow iris has flowered
this year which it did not last. The spring flowers certainly seem to have
done well this year. We saw an orange-tip butterfly nearby but it moved off
once I was ready with the camera! However did manage a quick snap of this blue
butterfly. I suspect that it is a Holly Blue but will check. Both pictures
open out if clicked on.
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3rd May and a typical British Bank Holiday Monday, heavy
rain all morning although at 3.30 p.m. as I write this the sun is attempting
to come out!  I can confirm that the butterfly of the
1st May was a Holly Blue and since then I have managed to capture photos of
two other insects, the first was of a weevil which I think is Phyllobius
pomaceus although there are many superficially similar species I am
informed.  The
other was obviously one of the hemiptera (bug order) but not one which I can
identify at this moment in time. It appeared on our window in the living room
last night and I was intrigued by the markings on its hind wing.
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 May 4th and at 6.18 a.m. it is a dull grey
morning with more rain forecast.  I
had time in the late afternoon yesterday to sit and watch the birds coming to
feed from the feeders and saw blue tits, great tits, coal tits, hedge
sparrows and dunnocks (the latter fed from the ground round the base of the
feeders). I managed photos of the blue tits and the great tits but
unfortunately when I attempted to take one of the h edge sparrow the sunlight
was shining at an awkward angle into the zoom lens.
Also when I arrived at the church this morning for the usual  coffee time there was a toadstool of
some kind growing in the porch. Quite a dramatic photo, I thought for such a
simple thing.
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  Not
nearly as dramatic as the photo I was able to get later. The time is now
10.30 p.m. and the evening has been quite exciting. First of all as I set out
for the Alpha Course which I attend on a Tuesday there was one of God's
wonderful rainbows opposite the house and I had time to catch it on film (you
know what I mean) just before my friend came to pick me up. Then as I arrive
home there is the lunar eclipse without too much cloud hiding it waiting for
me to take another photo, I was quite impressed with the detail the camera
picked up, I could not see it with the naked eye!. The photos all open up if
clicked on.
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 May
9th and the sky is once again grey. We have had a lot of rain over the past
few days and there has been little incentive to get out with the camera, even
when there has been sufficient time. The scruffy coal tit pictured here and
taken on 6th May perhaps gives an indication of the rather dubious weather
conditions.
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 Yesterday proved a little better when we went
to Sutton Hoo and gave me an opportunity to take some photos even though the
clouds remained and it was still somewhat damp. Probably the star of the day
was the green-veined white butterfly pieris napi, that came out in an
all too brief few moments of sunshine.
  However my eagle-eyed daughter
whose birthday we were celebrating proved to be invaluable as she saw this
large red damselfly (Pyrrhosoma nymphula) amongst several other
insects. The pictures open up.
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Some of the other insects that caught her eye were these,
reading from left to right there is a cranefly, an Adela reaumurella
moth and a the black fly is bibio hortulanus.
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  She also spotted some interesting fungi and we
all admired the hawthorn blossom.
And there was no missing the pheasant.
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  The
photo opportunities did not end there. When we returned to her home we
discovered this Lily beetle , Lilioceris lilii, on a leaf in her
garden pond and the evening ended with my finding a pug moth on our patio
door.
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  May 11th and once again it has begun overcast.
Yesterday began in the same manner but it did brighten up to a lovely sunny
afternoon, at least in Kings Lynn where we spent the day. The sun once again
brought out the butterflies and other insects and whilst I was unable to
capture the orange-tips that I hoped to I did manage a photo of the
nettle-tap moth, Anthophila fabriciana and this unknown insect.
The heron also obliged. 
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  May
12th and another grey day! As Brian Goodey commented in the Essex Moth Group
Newsletter; "After last year’s balmy weather it’s reassuring to see this
spring back to normal - cold, wet and entomologically-challenged." I am
pleased that it is not just myself that is finding there are not so many
insects around. However yesterday evening as I waited for a friend to pick me
up I managed to take the photo to the left. I wonder if it is a young
grasshopper or something similar. It certainly has the right sort of legs and
general shape but it was only about 3 mm long. If anyone has any ideas I
would love to hear from them, jollgreen@tiscali.co.uk
. Then this morning I saw this little fellow to the right. I believe that
he is a Tarnished Plant Bug, Lygus rugulipennis.
Finally to brighten up my day I took a photo of the Horse Chestnut
candles  I
passed on the way home from a friends.
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May 13th and finally the weather looks as if it may be
turning a corner. Although it remianed cloudy most of the day there were some
lovely bright periods and when the sun shone it was warm. So we took the
opportunity of a fairly quiet day to go for a walk in Hatfield Forest where we
saw enough wildlife to make a separate page. Please click here
to see what we found.
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