....with another Buff Tip, this time from the garden in company of this EHM and a second-only Short-cloaked and a bunch of Box Moths etc.
Later a walk round the usual circuit of QECP, interrupted by an egg roll and coffee, saw a Grass Snake slither rapidly away within an instant of being trodden on!! Things change so rapidly that today Ringlet was the commonest butterfly and a single Small Tortoiseshell the least; all of the small skippers appeared to be Small with this male showing its long kinked sex brand. A few moths were kicked up including Eucosoma cana also known as Hoary Bell.
Despite the devastation adjacent to the access track some trefoil is poking up through patches of thyme. This (below) will probably be the last CSO picture this year as most are now gone over. The Viper's Bugloss is well flowered along the roadside attracting bees and patches of Yellow Mignonette (Reseda lutea, also Weld) were obvious and, along with daisies etc, were attracting reasonable numbers of hovers although nothing noteworthy.
The local Swallows started alarm calling causing me to look up over my coffee and see them mobbing a slightly scruffy looking Sparrowhawk but other than heard-only Bullfinches it was typically quiet.
You sent me a sprig of mignonette,
Cool-colored, quiet, and it was wet
With green sea-spray...
You said: 'My sober mignonette
Will brighten your room and you will not forget
In the Language of Flowers mignonette means ‘Your qualities surpass your charms’.
