Please place the sea before precipitation

Plans for a solstice seek out of butterflies on the Suffolk coast seemed futile with poor ground temperature and very little sun peeking through the cloud cover.  In recompense I was treated to an lunch at Welney and an afternoon potter across the bridge onto the reserve.  The undoubted highlight was this trio which included a colour rung bird from the Great Crane Project.  There was a Quail doing some sporadic wet lipping and a male Peregrine whipped through and nabbed a chick of some description on Lady Fen.

 

 

I also got quite transfixed with the progress of this Leaf Weevil as it made it way along the handrail into one of the hides. 

The reserve staff and volunteers are lovely at Welney and we were over the moon when our little one was asked to help with the moth release prior to closing up.  She particularly liked the Elephant Hawkmoths as they are pink and matched the flowers on her dress.

I was particularly happy to see the Eyed Hawkmoth which I'm still to attract to my garden MV trap.  It only flashed it's underwing briefly but although blurry you can see why any predator would consider this moth to be a great deal bigger and more foxily ferocious than it ever could be, a great bit of evolution.



 

The sun hadn't poked out enough to warrant a second check of Chettisham Meadows for Marbled Whites so we had a good look at the Bee Orchids off Norfolk Road, Ely.  They're great plants and I tried a few different things to try and present them a bit differently.

Someone I met recently declared that the increased interest in Butterflies, Moths, Dragonflies and the like is down to what he called bored birder syndrome.  I think that's a bit disingenuous, there's just so much stuff growing and crawling and flying around over the summer, the very last thing any kind of naturalist can be at this time of year is bored.  Do bored botanists start looking at birds when the snow falls ??