It's feeling quite autumnal right now. Even so, I found this rush veneer moth in the lawn and a really nice dung beetle, Anoplotrupes stercorosus, up in the top part of the garden, a new species for the us.

As I'm going to be cutting back the long grass next week, I spent an hour trying to collect all the wasp spider egg sacs so I don't mow them. I managed to find 6 and I've collected them for safety. Last year's egg sacs didn't seem to hatch so I cut them open today. The spiderlings did hatch, but they clearly didn't manage to get out of the sac. Next year I will dampen them to see if I can help them along.

A kingfisher came to our pond today. He tried to land on a purple loosestrife stem but he was too heavy.

The pied flycatcher I saw last week has stayed in the garden for a while. Today, he finally came into the open to allow me to take a decent photo.

I worked on cutting back some of our hazel and rowen bushes today, finding this brimstone moth caterpillar and vapourer caterpillar. I took a photo of a micro moth we found a few days ago. He seems happy eating ribwort plantain, but I've no idea what species it is.

I managed to get the moth trap out again before the weather changes. There weren't any interesting moth species, but I did get this rather impressive weevil. I've added a few photos.

More of the bird migration today. This common redstart and wood warbler were around all day.

The return bird migration is underway. I got this crappy photo of a pied flycatcher over our pond.

While out on a long run this morning, we came across a blue-winged grasshopper. I got some video which I'll put up here when I've processed it, but in the meantime here is a screengrab from the video.

In the afternoon, with thunder rumbling around the valley, we took a walk around the garden. These rose galls are in the process of developing. And this striped shieldbug had just gone through its final instar and had yet to develop its proper adult colouration.

Lastly, while we were sitting in the back garden late in the afternoon, a Clouded Yellow butterfly flew through the garden. I didn't have my camera with me but I did have binoculars so I was able to get a really good look and confirm the ID. I've previously recorded this species in the valley but never in the garden. This becomes our 498th lepidoptera species recorded in the garden.