I had the moth trap out again last night. It rained which rather spoilt things. I had a few interesting species, but I can't really claim that elusive 600th species yet.

During the day, it was a little bit cooler. I've seen onion beetle on our chives for a few weeks and today I got some photos. The Volucella pellucens have been plentiful this year. This one was huge.

A flock of swallows were gathering in our birch. I notice I recorded them doing this in June this year. We originally thought they were gathering to migrate, but June was much too early.

I've neglected the birds this summer, but I was watching our pond out of the window today as I'd seen a water vole in there earlier. I didn't get a photo of the water vole, but I saw this pied flycatcher instead.

I also spotted a common lizard in the wall behind the pond.

I've been trying to record our 600 lepidoptera species - but I had to settle for the second record of the Weaver's Fritillary.

I tried out another moth trapping last night in a different part of the garden. The haul was broadly the same as a couple of days ago - lots of species and a good number of moths. There was only one new species for the garden though, a Sallow Kitten. Coupled with the new species I've ID'd from dissections, we're now only one species away from 600 lepidopera. I'm hoping that the 600th will be spectacular!

It was hot again today and the garden is now really suffering. Most of the flowering is over and the number of butterflies is much lower - although I did see this Wood White on one of our verbena flowers.

It's been quieter in the garden the last week or so - no new butterfly species. I managed to work through my dissection backlog and added a few more moth species to our list.

I put the moth trap out again last night. It is a new moon and was warm so it was a good haul this morning, with around 50 moth species two of which were new records for our garden.

We're now at 597 lepidoptera species - 3 to go to reach my 2026 target.

I put the moth trap out again last night. As we're seeing so many new butterfly species during the day I was expecting a special night and I wasn't disappointed. There were 5 new moth species - I've added pictures here.

Additionally, there was a treehopper, Ledra aurita, and a grasshopper, Aiolopus thalassinus. Both were new for the garden.

During the day another new grasshopper showed up on one of our windows, Stethophyma grossum.

Finally, we have had a dark green fritillary in the garden. This one looks a bit weird but unless it is something really rare, this would seem to be a dark green fritillary.

**UPDATE** This year keeps getting better and better. Shortly after I posted about the dark green fritillary, I spotted another new fritillary, a Queen of Spain Fritillary. Another species I've never had the pleasure to see before.

I recorded another new butterfly for the garden today - a Gatekeeper. It was really more surprising that I'd never recorded one before as they usually exist alongside Meadow Brown butterflies which are really common here. Unfortunately I didn't get a photo - but no ninja skills were needed for this ID. I'll endeavour to get a photo when I next see one.

While out searching for an elusive gatekeeper photo, I saw something even better; a Bedstraw Hawk-moth was visiting the soapwort flowers around our pond. Needless to say, this is a new species for the garden - so that's two new ones for the day and we're up to 585 lepidoptera species for the garden.