Local Walks Report

A variety of images taken from my local walks in the last few days.

The Barley crop is ripening and providing the weather holds it should harvested in the next 2 weeks.

A nice specimen of the Painted Lady turned up in front of me.

Also a Red Admiral, which I must say I have not seen many of so far this year.

Plenty of Meadow Brown butterflies can be observed now.

Female

Male

A Seven Spot Ladybird

A Small Skipper feeding from a Field Scabious flower.

Barley

 About a week ago I could only find a few Banded Demoiselle, now they are everywhere.

Purple Loosestrife

A pair of Mute Swans which did not appear to have had young this year.

Standing in one location I observed this male Banded Demoiselle taking off and repeatedly returning to the same spot. So I took a few shots of it as it was landing. 

This male Chaffinch was singing away in a tree next to a bridge. 

I am sure there is a female on a nest nearby as I have observed them both here recently.

The Maize crop continues to grow. It is very quick growing and this makes it attractive to use.

The beautiful Knapweed flower.

The Norfolk Hawker Dragonfly head on.

300mm. 1/6400 at f4. ISO 1250

Willowherb

More recently I have noticed that Farmers are growing Barley and Wheat cereal mixed together in the same field. This is new to me and I have not seen it before.

I discovered that recent research has shown that sowing the two grain crops together increases resilience to disease and productivity of both rather than growing them separately. One piece of research showed that there was an increase of 20% more wheat and 11% more Barley. It is not new however and has been around in some parts of the World for 3000 years and was termed 'Maslin' Crops.

The Essex Skipper Butterfly

The Essex Skipper

Note the black rounded tips on the end of its Antennae.

The Small Skipper has mostly orange tips and the Large Skipper has black and orange with a pointed end. 

A Butterfly Shoot

A Good Butterfly shoot this week.

Some species in this area appear to be a few weeks behind this year.

Marbled White

 Large Skipper

Silver-studded Blue

Lulworth Skipper

Dingy Skipper

Grayling

Small Heath