Rainfall: 88.9 mm

Temp High: 36.2^oC on 27th

Temp Low: 3.9^oC on 6th

Temp Average: 17.8^oC

Another day, another fritillary. This time a High Brown Fritillary - the first of the year. And in Christine's herb bed, a couple of Silver-washed Fritillaries were enjoying the Betony.

I spotted a Dewick's Plusia moth in the garden - which I don't see very often.

Inside the house, I found a dead Scoparia micro moth which will go into my next batch of dissections. I also found yet another new moth species, a Cloaked Pug.

To cap a great day, I found a White Spotted Rose Chafer on a thistle.

We had a heath fritillary in the garden this morning.

I also recorded a new species of micro moth, Monochroa tenebrella and a new species of beetle, Hemicrepidius niger. I also enjoyed seeing one of our favourites, Eristalis tenax, on a dianthus flower.

In our vegetable patch, this parsnip was covered with Rhagonycha fulva beetles.

While out on a run, I spotted this lettuce shark caterpillar. Nothing unusual in that (it's a bit early), but this was on Nipplewort. We've only previously seen these caterpillars on Prenanthes purpurea.

In the evening, three swallows landed in our birch tree.

It's predicted that today will be the last day of the extended heatwave we've been having. It's been in the upper 20s and lower 30s since the 17th June.

I recorded another new butterfly in the garden today, a Lesser Marbled Fritillary. Seeing two new butterfly species (after the Weaver's fritillary earlier this week) is unusual after living here for 14 years. I can think of three possible reasons:-

1. They've always been here and I just missed seeing them
2. They were introduced with all the new planting during last year's garden show
3. The unusually hot June weather has allowed them to migrate from a nearby site

I've included some photos of some other new species recorded in the garden today. The hoverfly Eristalis nemorum is particularly interesting. It caught my eye as there was one feeding on pollen and another hovering overhead. This is apparently courtship behaviour - the male is showing his flying skills (above a uninterested female in this case).

And a photo of a strange sight of some plant debris hanging on spider silk which look like golden rings. There were several of these.

I've now finished dissecting the dead moths from my trapping of the 18th. I managed to ID 6 new species for the garden from the 35 specimens collected. I'll be adding those to our species list when I find time.

Today, with a lot less effort, I went around the garden and recorded another 3 new species of lepidoptera. I also took a few photos of this Sicus ferrugineus fly.

I only made a few brief tours of the garden - it has been extremely hot for several days now and today it peaked at 35.1^oC - the hottest we've ever recorded at any time of the year. Far too hot to spend any time outside during the day.

One of the two puss moth caterpillars I hatched from eggs died today - for no apparent reason. The remaining one is thriving and is now on L3.

There was an amazing thunderstorm last light with strong winds, hail and heavy rain. This morning it was still hot, but much more humid than it has been. We spotted this Black-tailed Skimmer in our orchard today - a new species for us.

Lots to report today. Firstly, some common insects we see every year - a small skipper, a red assassin bug and Horistus orientalis.

The weather was really hot today and it was a new moon too - perfect for the moth trap.

The trap was extremely full in the morning - thousands of caddis flies, a few cockroaches and wasps. But in amongst all that were nearly 50 moth species - with at least 5 new species. There were a few casualties in the trap so I've got some dissections to do which will no doubt yield some more new species.

This speckled bird had me puzzled for a while. My ID app said it was a lesser redpoll (with an 80% accuracy). That would be a new species for the garden - but I'm pretty sure it is actually a fledgling serin. We've had a pair visiting the garden regularly this year and I'd already seen a juvenile with them - but this was on its own which is what confused me.

It's been an amazing year for all the birds. We've had fledgling blue tits, great tits, goldfinches, greenfinches, blackbirds, serins and hawfinches.

A quick trip around the garden with my camera yielded a few new species.

Firstly, one of the small oak saplings in our hedge has a lot of these red pea galls.

Next, this burnet companion moth was enjoying the flowers of some cut-leaved chervil.

Lastly, I spotted this beetle on some St John's Wort flower buds - perfect as this is Chrysolina varians - the sole foodplant of which is St John's Worts.

I found a pair of these Dichrorampha sequana micro moths in-cop on one of our tansy plants. It's a difficult group to ID from sight and the foodplants this species uses is disputed. Both these were well-marked, so I'm happy to commit to this new species for the garden.

This huge stonefly was crawling around our terrace this afternoon. Well named the Large Stonefly, Dinocras cephalotes.

For some reason we kept getting harlequin ladybird larvae on our patio table. This is the third one we saw within an hour. We kept moving them to a valerian plant with an aphid problem, but they kept turning up back on the patio (it was too far away for them to be the same individual).

Lastly, I saw another micro moth while walking around. Not a new species but a nice-looking one, Cnephasia asseclana.

The puss moth caterpillar collected on Wednesday is now at L2. And the two eggs hatched today so you can see the difference between the first and second instars as well as the caterpillars eating their way out of the eggs.

While out on a run this morning, I was lucky to spot this tiny first instar Puss Moth caterpillar. I marked the spot and we went back to collect it later. I also spotted two eggs nearby, which look like they could also be Puss Moth eggs, so we collected them too.

Inspired by that caterpillar, I went around the garden beating trees to see what other caterpillars are around at the moment. I found two Clouded Drab moth caterpillars on willow and hazel, so I collected those too. It was windy today and caterpillars tend to cling on better - so I may try again on a calmer day. I particularly want to see what is on our oaks.

I took another photo of the micro moth caterpillar I collected on rose on the 2nd June. I won't be able to ID the species until the adult emerges.

The weather is about to change and today's 25^oC will be a distant memory from tomorrow and for the next week or so.

Quite unexpectedly, I found a forester moth in our front garden today. I last recorded this species in 2020 and I was convinced it was now extinct in our area. I'll continue to watch for purple-edged copper butterflies - which is the other species I haven't seen for many years.

By the pond, I saw this small pearl-bordered fritillary posing for a photo on a blue iris - another nice surprise as we haven't seen this species since 2022.

For some reason, the winged broom plant that we transplanted from outside the garden around six years ago, when it was about to be grazed, has decided to flower for the first time.

There was a Colorado beetle on our deadly nightshade plant today. There's no sign on our potatoes, so no need to panic yet.

There were three Mullein moth caterpillars on a mullein plant - each at a different instar. I couldn't find the really small one when I returned wirh my camera, so I only got a photo of two of them.

I had to chase this cat away as he'd somehow managed to get on top of one of our bird boxes. The blue tits that were in there last week have fledged so he's too late - but we want to discourage this from happening again!

The weather has changed and is much colder and rainy. Coupled with the fact that a huge flock of sheep arrived a couple of days ago and have completely wiped out all plant life on the fields around our garden - any hopes of a resurrection of forester moths and purple-edged copper butterflies this year are now gone.

Our little garden in the middle of it all will hopefully be an island for anything escaping the sheep.

Sadly, there wasn't much going on in the garden today - but I did record a new beetle species for the garden, Clanoptilus elegans, enjoying our only white iris flower along with another beetle, Stenurella nigra, which is not a new species for the garden but I seem to have missed recording it in the website.