A productive July brought in plenty for the garden.

Buff Ermine

July was still predominantly a insect month, there was a small amount of bird activity with a couple of Whimbrel passing over, a Marsh Harrier heading east and a lot more Swifts in the air. On one day I witnessed a pair of Hobbies teaming up against a small bird, trying to force it towards the other to prey on, one Hobby gave up whilst the other was lost to sight heading out to sea still chasing the bird. There was a lot of butterfly activity and plenty of new moths in the garden. This Buff Ermine moth above displayed a set of markings I had not seen before, depicting a elegant moustache was quite fitting for me to catch I thought.

Small Skipper

The garden was awash with butterflies most days, at the beginning of the month there was a large movement of white butterflies, when Wimbledon was on the previous year the same thing happened and then during the second week there were hundreds of small and large whites moving along the coast, a lovely sight to see.

 Gatekeeper

If you get the chance to see a Gatekeeper up close before it flies, you can pick out the 2 white spots in the black marking on the underside, there were a lot feeding on the marjoram in the garden and the bramble hedges were awash with them, and they can be very territorial to a favoured feeding area, chasing away other larger butterfly.

 Large White

Every so often the Hummingbird Hawkmoth would visit the garden, favouring the verbena scattered around, I never get fed up with watching these.

 Hummingbird Hawkmoth

 Among the many Large and Small White butterfly I saw just this one Green Veined White, easily recognisable when feeding with wings folded.

 Gatekeeper

One of the first butterfly of the Spring to see are the Brimstone, a welcome sight to the garden, It is commonly believed that the word 'butterfly' is derived from 'butter-coloured fly' which is attributed to the yellow of the male Brimstone butterfly.

 Brimstone

 Comma

The jagged edges of the comma's bright orange wings are a giveaway. The name comma butterfly derives from the small white 'C'-shaped marking resembling a comma on the underside of its wings.

 Meadow Brown

The Meadow Brown is larger than the similar Gatekeeper but notice the single white dot on the black marking as opposed to the Gatekeeper's two dots.

 Comma

 Small Skipper

 Southern Hawker

This Southern Hawker dragonfly was resting up on bramble early one morning along the lanes, you will see these and other species patrolling up and down a territory hunting other insects, flight times is from the end of June right through to October.

 Poplar Hawkmoth

The moth species started to dramatically increase in the garden, I had many new 'year ticks' and a few brand new species for the garden list, Hawkmoths were in decent numbers on some nights and always a delight to see in the trap the next morning.

 Silver Y

This Silver Y is also regularly seen during the day in gardens, deriving it's name from the Y pattern on the wings.

 Barred Yellow

There are a lot of colourful species of moth, definitely not a boring sight.

 Elephant Hawkmoth

Speaking to a friend, it was discussed how there seemed to a lot of Elephant Hawkmoths that were very much under size resembling a size more like a small elephant hawkmoth!

I too found a Poplar Hawkmoth which appeared a lot smaller than normal.

 Buff Arches

The Buff Arches has a real intricate patterning on the wings, a stunning moth really.

 Buff-Tip

This weird looking moth gets it's name from the buff coloured patch at the end of the wings, it rests up and looks just like a broken birch twig.

 Bordered Pug

This Bordered Pug was a welcome new species for the garden.

 Common Emerald

Looking more like a butterfly the Common Emerald is a stunningly coloured moth.

 Lychnis

Another new addition for the garden and my first one ever.

 Leopard Moth

This is a very easily recognised moth with its 'wooly' head and black spotted markings.

 Lesser Swallow Prominent

I have been getting Swallow Prominents in the garden but not the Lesser Swallow Prominent pictured above, a sort after addition for the garden and very similar to the closely marked Swallow Prominent, but the whiter marked wings and larger white triangular patch on the upper corner of the wing set it apart.

 Large Emerald

Very similar to the Common Emerald, this Large Emerald is just as beautiful and the largest of the emerald moth species.

 Bird's Wing

I love the name of this moth, and my first ever.

Barred Straw

This moth is identified due to its unique resting posture with the forewings held extended and covering the hindwings.

So a busy month with the winged insects, August should start to see more birds beginning to move and still more new moths hopefully for the garden.

Fluttering June.

June soon came and went, with a mixed bag of weather it was hit and miss throughout the month but definitely a month of quantity and some quality stuff.

On the birding front I saw family groups of Common Whitethroat and Lesser Whitethroats, young ones in tow following the movements of the parents as they zig zagged through the bushes feeding. I was now seeing more Sandwich Terns offshore feeding, their loud calling giving themselves away over the waves. A female Marsh Harrier flew past the garden mid month, they are becoming more regular past. And then there were the Swifts, how lovely to see them flying overhead again, but this brings me onto a worrying concern for these birds, on the television I heard numbers were down by 50%.....not good to hear, so to see hundreds of them all heading south/southeast during the month and only just after they've arrived in the country is confusing to say the least. Reports of 1000's of Swifts moving past Yorkshire and Lincolnshire coasts is good in respect that hopefully numbers getting here are still healthy as opposed to the report of a huge drop! but what are they up to moving like this, surely too many to be failed breeders but why head off so early?

Other snippets close by were Bee-eaters seen over Sidestrand and Northrepps and a possible Eagle species near Southrepps?

 On Sunday 2nd June I noticed at least 6 Painted Lady butterflies pass through the garden within an hour, another mass invasion was perhaps on the cards?

As the days passed I was still seeing a few Painted Lady butterflies, but with the changing weather they were not showing every day, by mid month they were everywhere, a mass invasion of these beauties had been spreading across Europe and they were definitely here, on a few flowering bushes along the side of the church I counted over 30 butterflies and there were more flying around. They are a long distance migrant but do not always turn up 'en masse'.

Last year it was Large and Small Whites, this year it is the turn of the Painted Lady's.

 As the month moved on there were more and more Red Admirals around, and a couple of species of dragonfly were seen, this Four Spotted Chaser (below) was along Church Lane and a Broad Bodied Chaser made a flight over the garden.

 It seemed to be a good year for Common Spotted Orchids, I found the first one of the year behind the Pilgrim Shelter and then days later they started to show along the clifftops, and this year there appeared to be many more west of the clifftop wood with over a hundred counted in one stretch alone.

 A special orchid to see was this Bee Orchid (below), there were just 2 plants on grassy area near the clifftop where the bottle banks are located past Middle Street.

 IS IT A BIRD-IS IT A BEE-NO ITS A MOTH!

 I love to see the Hummingbird Hawkmoths return to the garden, such energetic little things always on the move feeding.

 And as the month moved on and the weather got warmer the moths started to arrive and one species I look forward to getting are the Hawkmoths. So far I have had 4 species and hopefully soon will have the Convolvulous returning to feed on the Nicotina plants.

 Pine Hawkmoth

 Eyed Hawkmoth

This Eyed Hawkmoth was a new addition for the garden list, theres no mistaking where it gets its name from, look at those eye markings on the underwings to ward off predators.

 Privet Hawkmoth

Poplar Hawkmoth

Muted May ! Or was it ?

 It certainly felt like May was muted, with hardly any bird photos taken and concentrating more on insects and flora it seemed that way until reviewing everything I listed and photographed to upload here, I realised it was actually quite busy!

The Lesser Whitethroats were active at the start of the month and then went quiet, hopefully about to start nesting and bringing up some little uns'.

 Everything was paired and looking at nesting, House Martins were buzzing around the houses, more Swallows were passing. There were still a few Wheatears being seen in the fields off the lanes, and on the 8th of the month I had my first Swift over the garden, a sight I long to see every year. The next day and even more swifts passing overhead and then it seemed to just stop, no doubt the changeable weather had held them up further south!

 Along the clifftops when Sarah and I were walking the dogs on the 13th, we encountered our first ever Wall butterfly.

 A lot more plants were coming into bloom and on one occasion with the sun shining bright I couldn't help notice a sea of light blue through the gaps in the hedgeline, rounding a gap further along Sarah and I were amazed at the expanse of colour before us, the mobile phone camera could not match the sight our eyes saw. After asking around and researching I found it to be a crop called Lacy Phacelia (known by other names also such as scorpion weed) it is used as a ground cover for birds/with a high nectar count it's used for pollenation/and also used as green manure. They were definitely attracting the bees, I think I will have to get some of this for the garden.

 Another new plant addition for us both was the Early Purple Orchids, found in the roadside verges along the lanes, it had eluded us the previous year but now we had finally found some.

 On the 14th my first Hobby of the year flew past the back garden, a few more were seen heading in during the month. And on the same day an evening walk to the clifftop bench with the dogs produced at least 3 Harbour Porpoises close in to the groynes. 

We were starting to see a few of these little green gems around Trimingham, the Green Hairstreak is a stunningly coloured butterfly.

This Wolf Spider was in my garden, it's resting position,stretched out as in the 2nd photo, is characteristic of this spider, it is a webless spider ( except for the female spinning a web for the nursery of young) due to the fact that it is such a fast moving spider it can chase down its prey with ease.

 It is great to find out about nature that you didn't know had an interesting background or history, this Fumitory plant is one of those such subjects. I have found it along the lane verges and on the edge of a crop field, when reading up on it I was amazed at it's meaning, the name of "fumitory" is derived from a medieval latin word meaning "smoke of the earth", pulling a plant from the ground will cause the roots to give off an acrid/gaseous smell recalling the fumes of nitric acid, this is the origin of the North American name for the plant "fume root", and if that wasn't enough background knowledge, if the sap gets into your eyes it will make them water as if affected by smoke! amazing!  

 Back to birds now, and mid month I had a cuckoo calling from the scrub near the pottery and then along middle street on a couple of days, apparently awaking people there with it's early morning calling!

I saw a group of Mediterranean Gulls pass the back garden and was happy to once again see the swifts passing over, on one morning at the end of the month I saw 2 Common Cranes out to the western edge of Trimingham circling up on thermals before heading southwest, a welcome addition to the patch list as normally when the Cranes decide to have a day out as it were from broads region, they previously seem to cut off this corner and head further along the northern coastline before turning back to where they came from, perhaps blown more this way by the winds they were a welcome sight. To finish off the bird reporting, the night silence on the 30th was broken by the very welcoming sound of a Tawny Owl, it had been at least a year or more since I regularly heard them nearby, so it was nice to once again have one around.

Chocolate Tip

And last but not least, the mothing was producing different species for the year as the month progressed, on a few occasions I took over a lot of room in our fridge with the pots! With a few new species for the garden and indeed some firsts I've not had before hopefully this year will be a productive one for the moths. 

 Treble Lines

 Heart and Dart

 Rustic Shoulder Knot

 Waved Umber

 Light Emerald

 Pale Tussock

 Green Carpet

 Lime Speck Pug

 Clouded Border

 Setaceous Hebrew Character

 Iron Prominent

 Pebble OakTip

Least Black Arches.