Rainfall: 203.2 mm

Temp High: 30.3^oC on 1st

Temp Low: -0.3^oC on 29th

Temp Average: 12.5^oC

A chiffchaff was hopping around the bird-cherry tree today.

We've had a crested tit in the garden for the past few days. For these photos I was lucky as I was trying to take a photo of an interesting bird I thought I'd seen (I didn't get a photo of that) and I had the window open and my camera ready when the cresty appeared.

It looks like today is going to be the last of the warm weather this year.

There was plenty of insect activity and stuff going on in the pond. I finally got a decent photo of a common groundhopper. We've probably got hundreds of these in the garden, but they are very small and very difficult to find.

A newt with an orange lateral strip was basking in the pond. Judging by its size, I presume this was an alpine newt.

A southern hawker was patrolling over the pond and allowed me to take some photos in-flight.

Lastly, there was a nest of yellow meadow ants swarming from our house wall. We haven't seen any other eruptions this year.

This bird in our garden, had me puzzled for a while. After examining the photos it seems it is a fledgling robin.

In the afternoon, there was a large flock of swallows flying around the valley. I'm pretty sure some of these photos show them eating or grooming on the wing.

It's feeling quite autumnal right now. Even so, I found this rush veneer moth in the lawn and a really nice dung beetle, Anoplotrupes stercorosus, up in the top part of the garden, a new species for us.

As I'm going to be cutting back the long grass next week, I spent an hour trying to collect all the wasp spider egg sacs so I don't mow them. I managed to find 6 and I've collected them for safety. Last year's egg sacs didn't seem to hatch so I cut them open today. The spiderlings did hatch, but they clearly didn't manage to get out of the sac. Next year I will dampen them to see if I can help them along.

A kingfisher came to our pond today. He tried to land on a purple loosestrife stem but he was too heavy.

The pied flycatcher I saw last week has stayed in the garden for a while. Today, he finally came into the open to allow me to take a decent photo.

I worked on cutting back some of our hazel and rowan bushes today, finding this brimstone moth caterpillar and vapourer caterpillar. I took a photo of a micro moth we found a few days ago. He seems happy eating ribwort plantain, but I've no idea what species it is.

I managed to get the moth trap out again before the weather changes. There weren't any interesting moth species, but I did get this rather impressive weevil. I've added a few photos.

More of the bird migration today. This common redstart and wood warbler were around all day.

The return bird migration is underway. I got this crappy photo of a pied flycatcher over our pond.

While out on a long run this morning, we came across a blue-winged grasshopper. I got some video which I'll put up here when I've processed it, but in the meantime here is a screengrab from the video.

In the afternoon, with thunder rumbling around the valley, we took a walk around the garden. These rose galls are in the process of developing. And this striped shieldbug had just gone through its final instar and had yet to develop its proper adult colouration.

Lastly, while we were sitting in the back garden late in the afternoon, a Clouded Yellow butterfly flew through the garden. I didn't have my camera with me but I did have binoculars so I was able to get a really good look and confirm the ID. I've previously recorded this species in the valley but never in the garden. This becomes our 498th lepidoptera species recorded in the garden.