The caterpillar I collected on the 25th May has now pupated in a silk hammock. I'm still sticking with an ID of a blood-vein moth.

The small elephant hawk-moth caterpillar I collected back in July last year emerged today.

I've just bought myself a very nice beetle identification book so I'll be giving beetles some attention this year. We're starting with the basics with this pair of 22-spot ladybirds.

This common lizard was basking in the sun. He's clearly lost his tail in the near past.

A pair of slow worms were writhing about under the privet hedge.

We had swifts, swallows and house martins flying about today. I've included a photo of a swallow as they're usually quite difficult to photograph in flight.

In the evening, I was able to deploy my new beetle book again on this more challenging individual. In fact the book failed me as this species isn't in there. This is Platyrhinus resinosus - a fungus eater - and delightfully sluggish.

A beautiful sunny day with occasional thundery showers.

We went down to the dry stone wall to see if the sand lizards were out and about. They weren't, but we saw a nice lot of peacock butterfly caterpillars in front of the house. I also collected a geometrid caterpillar from the dry stone wall. I suspect this is a blood-vein moth.

On the way back we saw a grizzled skipper butterfly ovipositing and I collected one of the eggs she laid.

I have been expecting to see a ring ouzel in the valley ever since we got here. Today I finally saw one at the top of one of the conifers around the back of the house. I ran to my camera as quickly as I could, but it had gone by the time I got there. I'd normally doubt what I actually saw, but I got a really good look through binoculars and it was a finely marked male, so I'm absolutely certain of of the ID.

The blue tits that are nesting in one of  house martin boxes are coming and going regularly. Here's a photo of some food going in.

A bat was flying around the house this evening around 7:30pm. I think it is a pipistrelle.

We had both male and female blackcaps in the garden today.