The photo gallery from the Isles-de-la-Madeleine is going to take some time to assemble with almost a 1000 photos to process and consider (and cull down to manageable levels) but while my readers are eagerly waiting in suspense I thought I would share an observation of just one species as a "taster" of [...]
A cautionary tale for amateur entomologists I assume that a professional would never do something as dumb as this. Would they? In a passage in his autobiography, Charles Darwin wrote in a letter to one Leonard Jenyns* that a (bombardier) beetle had attacked him. Quote: " ... I must tell you what [...]
Temperatures a bit above 10C in the past couple of days and some warm sunshine produced the emergence of a number of tiny bees busily investigating leaf litter and Sanguinaria and crocus flowers near the garden waterfall this afternoon ... the camera and I went outside to meet them. These bees are a [...]
Two Fascinating Findings this Morning. We took today’s walk (we make it a rule to walk somewhere every day - got to fight off this ageing business) in the Arboretum which apart from a couple of dog walkers we had to ourselves. When we set off along the trail there were ice [...]
Snowberry Clearwing (Hummingbird) Moth Today is impossibly hot with blazing sun and a humidex of >40C ... on the other hand, these conditions brought this wonderful moth out to play amongst our phlox flowers. Hemaris diffinis The moth is not quite as large as a Hummingbird but easy to confuse at a [...]
Realizing that I had a good photograph of a White Admiral butterfly, an insect that is more black than white, I wondered what it would look like in monochrome. This is the result - quite pleasing, especially as it was sitting on a white flower at the time. This was taken almost a [...]
Common Yellow Garden Spider (Argiope aurantia) About this time of year we start to enjoy the big webs and bright yellow bodies of the Yellow Garden Spider. Today we found one busily wrapping up a snack she had caught in her web ... hard to tell, but just possibly a Japanese Beetle. [...]
Following a long and very heavy spell of high heat days with health warnings to stay indoors etc there was rain today and afterwards this wonderful moth was working the flowers on the milkweed plants. About the size of a thumb and an absolute gem of an insect - we have seen [...]
Not that we have any urge to escape from the garden - this lockdown business is not causing any mental disturbance at all - but occasionally we like to check up on what the wild world is up to and so we take ourselves five minutes down the road to walk the trails [...]
Bruce Spanwing Moth A couple of days ago we saw a pale moth flying across the garden - late November, snow on the ground, temperatures around zero or below - and shrugged as it flew away. This morning we got a closer look at it, or a relative. I am reasonably confident that [...]