Sutton Hoo - 8th August 2023

 Today, we visited Sutton Hoo. Whilst there, we walked around the site, and, despite dull, over cast conditions, we spotted a few interesting insects.

The first was a female Brown Argus butterfly (my first of the year).

Brown Argus

The next species was a Nursery Web Spider.

Nursery Web Spider

21st May 2022 - First Dragons and Damsels

 Jayne and I had a walk around Seymour Ponds yesterday, and saw our first Damsel and Dragonflies of the year.

The first species seen was Blue-tailed Damselfly, followed closely by Large Red and Azure Damselflies. Several Four-spotted Chasers were also seen flying around.

Four-spotted Chaser

In addition to the damselflies, we also saw a few butterfly species: Orange Tip, Brimstone, Green-veined White, Small Heath and one of my favourites, Brown Argus.

Brown Argus (underwing)

Brown Argus (upperwing)

North Wales' Insects

Following on from my last post about some of the insects Jayne and I saw at RSPB South Stack I thought I'd write another post to show some of the species we saw in the Happy Valley Park in Llandudno, and at the National Trust's Bodnant Garden.

First off, Llandudno. We found this small park on the base of the Great Orme and spent a couple of hours here over two days. The highlight for me was finding a new species, Brown Argus. This is  quite a tricky species to identify, but, eventually, I managed to identify both males and females.

Brown Argus (female)

Brown Argus (male)

We also had Common Blue Butterflies and a Silver Y moth here, along with another new species for me, Mullein Moth. We didn't see the moths, but we did manage to see the very colourful caterpillars.

Mullein Moth

On Tuesday, Jayne and I spent a couple of hours at Bodnant Garden, just outside Llandudno. The weather was great, very warm and sunny, and we managed to spot some damselflies including Common Blue, Azure, Large Red and Beautiful Demoiselles, all of which were breeding.

Beautiful Demoiselle (male)

Beautiful Demoiselle (female)