Rainfall: 107.7 mm

Temp High: 30.2^oC on 29th

Temp Low: 1.7^oC on 12th

Temp Average: 15.1^oC

Lots of photos today. It was really hot - over 30^oC for the first time this year.

Starting with a Clytra quadripunctata beetle. Not a new species for the garden, but the dew on his back makes these photos quite pleasing.

I had a go at photographing a dragonfly that was patrolling the pond. I had the wrong lens on the camera to be honest, so the results aren't up to much - but I thing this is a brilliant emerald dragonfly, which is a new species for the garden.

The Tetragnatha extensa is a new species of spider for the garden too. It's a water specialist so our pond has brought that one in.

All around the pond, plants are decorated with insect exuvia. This one was on a reed in the pond.

I mentioned a few days ago that we had a lot of violet carpenter bees this year. I thought this one was a rare white-headed aberation - but it looks like it had just visited a flower with a lot of white pollen.

I took some pictures of our triangle of land as it is looking spectacular this year. The sheep are just about to arrive, so this will be completely trashed in a few days.

I'll finish with a couple of beetles. The Larinus sturnus is on a field thistle which we've been trying to establish in our thistle garden as it is so fragrant. This is the first year we've managed to get it to grow.

Finally, a new species of micro moth which I found inside the house this afternoon. This is Eucosmia cana - another species where the larval foodplant is knapweed.

I've been meaning to take some photos of the small tubular snails we're seeing lots of this year. I already ID'd them to the family Macrogastra a while back from an empty shell, but these are live so I might be able to get to the species this time.

While out on a run, I came across this very large adder that had been run-over on the forest road not far from our house. This road isn't used a lot, so this individual was quite unlucky. It's probably lived there for quite a few years judging by its size. Very upsetting.

I thought this black lump on one of the reeds in our pond looked interesting. I did some research and this is probably an egg mass of a Tabinidae fly - in other words one of the horse fly species. I decided to collect them and put them in the freezer. We've got too many of these bloody things already.

Towards the evening, we did our regular slug and snail patrol (they've been really bad this year). I did get to see another new moth species for the garden, this Agapeta zoegana. The larval food plant is knapweed (the roots).

My office affords me a good view of the garden. I had the window open today and I heard some splashing in the pond. This wryneck was having a bath. He'd already left the pond by the time I got my camera set up, but he stayed a while drying off in the grass.

A couple of photos of a male great spotted woodpecker and a male red-backed shrike. Not much else was happening today.

Hurray! The rain stopped today.

I found a last instar dragonfly nymph crawling up the steps to our cottage garden. This is possibly an emperor dragonfly nymph.

I did a tour of our overgrown garden today. Firstly I recorded a new moth - a grass veneer, Chrysoteuchia culmella. To be honest, I see a lot of grass veneers every year and I've never bothered to try to ID them as the family is notoriously difficult. Maybe I'll try to ID a few more if I can.

I've included a few photos of other species I found today. No other new records though.

We've seen a lot of violet carpenter bees this year. This one was visiting one of our garden plants near the pond.

It's back to miserable weather. We've had a male red-backed shrike around the garden for the past few weeks but today the male and female visited together. My photo caught the female mid-yawn.

The caterpillar I collected from a supermarket cauliflower last week emerged - after only a few days. As predicted, it was a diamondback moth.

There are lots of fledglings in the garden at the moment. Here's a couple of baby blue tits who have been taught where the best food is.

This blackbird had an alternate source of food from our garden. This writhing mass is presumably destined for the nest.

The weather has been awful again. This spring has been non-existent and this is another blank year for all of my target moth and butterfly species (Mother Shipton moth, Forester moth and Purple-edged copper butterfly).

After a couple of weeks, the over-summering brambling is back!

We've had a wryneck in the garden a few times this week. We've heard them quite a bit this year and I have switched the categorisation of the wryneck species on this website from 'passage visitor' to 'summer resident' as they are definitely breeding close by. This individual was looking very unhappy in the rain.

We bought a cauliflower from the supermarket and found two blue caterpillars inside. They pupated almost immediately inside a silken net. My best guess is that they are diamondback moths, but I'll find out soon enough when they emerge - they have a very fast life cycle.

I collected some eggs I found on greater willowherb as I thought they may be interesting - but I think these are shieldbug eggs, so not as interesting as I'd hoped. I'll let them hatch to be sure.

We put up our ornamental rakes in the garden a couple of weeks ago. This blackbird was enjoying the view from one today.

Despite lots of cats coming through the garden, this mouse seemed quite brave.

After seeing our first field cricket in the garden last year, I went searching for the burrow of one that that's been stridulating in the garden for the past few days. He was very difficult to locate as he stopped stridulating as soon as I got near and he was able to throw his voice so it seemed like he was moving several metres. I eventually tracked him down and set up my camera and tripod outside the burrow. He came out quite readily but I waited for 20 minutes or so and he wouldn't start stridulating again - so I gave up. He was quiet for several hours, so I was right to give up.

It's not a new species, but I got some better photos of a bee-hive beetle that landed on our house today.

It was a beautiful sunny day today - it seems like ages since we had this sort of nice weather. We did a lot of gardening, but we also found some time to sit by the pond and were rewarded by seeing this ~3cm palmate newt larva - nearly ready to leave the pond (you can see it only has vestigial gills).

I had the moth trap out again last night. It was a pretty good night with 18 species - one of which, this scorched wing, was a new record for the garden.

Walking around the garden later in the day, I found another new moth species for the garden, this rather nice Grapholita compositella, posing appropriately on a leaf of its larval foodplant, clover.

I also came across a new species of weevil, Involvulus cupreus, the larvae of which feed in the fruits of fruit trees apparently.

There are a lot of forest cockroaches about at the moment. There were quite a few on one of our garden benches.

Yesterday, I spotted a dead rose chafer one of our paths. Today, these firebugs were feasting on it.

Christine found this Mottled Umber caterpillar on our bird-cherry. This is a new species for the garden. I recorded it back in 2011 when we saw it in Rastatt (on a trip to see our house before we moved here). I've put it in a puparium so I can hopefully get some photos of the adult when if it emerges in November/December.

I've got a week off of work so I can potter round the garden with my camera. Unfortunately the weather isn't up to much but it is slowly drying out after weeks of rain.

There were a couple of new species for the garden, a Tenthredo zona sawfly, and lots of these rockhoppers which I can only ID to family so they're recorded as Machilidae sp. Right next to them in the stone wall was this slime mould which I won't attempt to ID.

These two roman snails were performing a mating ritual in the garden today.

The video is a bit gross - only watch it if you've got a strong stomach.

I recorded a new species of moth today. This is a weird one - I'm pretty sure I've seen this before, but I'd always written it off as a Scoparia - a family that is extremely difficult to ID to species level. Anyway, I thought I'd have a go at IDing it and it isn't a scoparia at all. It's Dioryctria abietella - a pine feeder. As I found it under our spruce, this makes sense.

I also found a yellow snail which is probably a grove snail.