Rainfall: 259.1mm

Temp High: 31.7^oC on 19th

Temp Low: 6.9^oC on 8th

Temp Average: 16.6^oC 

I've never seen the gregarious behaviour of harvestmen before, but we have a group of about 50 huddled under the netting on one of our raised beds. They present a mess of black legs to any predator which is quite intimidating. Disturb them and they decluster - enough to horrify all but the hardiest of entomologists. I've posted a short video showing this behaviour. I've subsequently found that this is Leiobunum species A - a species so new to Europe that it hasn't been given a proper name yet.

As I was wandering around the garden, this large robber fly, Eutolmus rufibarbis, landed beside me on the fence.

Once again, our mint flowers have seen some unpleasantness. Today, it was a hornet attacking a bumblebee. This time, the hornet flew off with the prey.

There were a few great green bush crickets around our vegetable beds and a harlequin beetle with mesmerising 'eyes'.

I've seen some paper wasps drinking from the pond a few weeks ago, but my photos didn't really work so I took some more today.

Back in June 2021 I recorded Rhynocoris iracundus in the garden - a fierce-looking assasin bug with a nasty stinger. Today I saw this predator in action. He'd caught a large bumblebee on one of our mint plants and was sucking it dry. I watched for a few minutes and then he just dropped the empty carcass and flew off to see what else he could catch.

On a more pleasant vein, I spent some time trying to get a photo of a hummingbird hawk-moth that was visiting our lavender and I also snapped a few more grasshopper nymphs to practice my IDing skills.

The firebugs that have been breeding profusely on our mallow have reached plague proportions. They don't seem to really be doing much harm, so I'm sure a balance will be established in due course.

This juvenile common redstart was perched on one of our rakes today.

Six-legged spiders are not a thing, yet this one was in our house today. Christine had been doing a bit of hoovering, so maybe the other two legs went in the hoover. He/she seemed quite happy nonetheless.

As dusk fell, we came upon these two violet ground beetles 'in-cop' as the entomologists say.

A kingfisher has been visiting our pond every day this week. He won't let me take a photo when he's close to the pond, but for a short while he sat on one of our ornamental rakes a bit further away with this huge 'thing' that he managed to land from our pond.

The grass in our garden is alive with grasshoppers and crickets. I'm not very good at identifying them, so here's a photo of one on our fence which I'll endeavour to identify at some time in the future.

It was warm and sunny today. The garden has been abuzz with bees, butterflies and other insects. Here's a photo of a sooty copper butterfly and a bunch of firebugs which have been enjoying our mallows.

I collected a ruby tiger caterpillar a few weeks ago. It emerged today.

I recorded a new shieldbug for the garden, this is Carpocoris fuscispinus.

Also in the garden today was a row of very large puffballs which I uncovered with the strimmer (hence the damage). Not sure if these are large enough to be giant puffballs.

I've included a video of a grass snake hunting in our pond. We saw two grass snakes in there at the same time, but one of them decided to hide when I got my camera out.

Today's migration bird was this whinchat.

We've had lots of greenfinches over the summer. This fine specimen was in the garden today.

I found another female wasp spider in the front garden. And later on, I saw this large moth on our house wall. I thought it might have been a clifden nonpareil. With a bit of encouragement I got him to show his hindwing to reveal that he was a red underwing - another new species for the garden.

A juvenile male common redstart was in and around the garden today.

I put yesterday's garden tiger out in the garden on our rockery last night. It was quite cold overnight and I was surprised this morning not only was it still in the same place, but it had been joined by a little friend. I presume it was a female and a male was attracted by pheromones.

The garden tiger I collected on the 10th June emerged today.

I found this caterpillar on chervil in the orchard. It looks like a much more darker marked broad barred white caterpillar like the one I found on the 7th July - but this is rather late and on an unexpected foodplant so I'm less confident with the ID than I was with the earlier one. I've collected it so we may see soon.

The goldfinches are enjoying our thistle garden. There are five in the photo.

Is this young great spotted woodpecker showing the first signs that they might be a 'he'?

In the early evening, I saw what could be the last swifts of 2023 flying amongst the numerous house martins.