On our one day of Indian summer there was an explosion of butterflies, flitting around the Michaelmas Daisies.
Category: Insects
Black Darter
Dragonfly basking on rock I think that this is a ‘Black Darter’, which lives up to its name by hardly ever being still enough to photograph, darting constantly from reed to reed and zooming around the edges of the lochan in the late summer sunshine. When we get a day like this, I love to […]
Dahlia Bee
Dahlia Bee This particular bee was either asleep, drunk on nectar, or just taking a nap, as it stayed on the flower for over 2 hours, giving the occasional lackadaisical wave of its antennae. Even with the bee at rest it wasn’t an easy photograph – the flowers have very long stems and wave around […]
Argus Meadow
The play of light, Silver Birch, Strathspey The meadow is a wild grassland, an open space amongst the surrounding birch woods. There are old tumbled ruins suggesting that it was once farmed, or maybe a sheiling where animals were taken to graze during the summer. Earlier in the summer it was full of wild flowers, […]
Bee Hug
Rhododendron Bee My Rhododendron has had its best display in years, just laden with delicate pink blossom this last week, possibly due to the mild winter we’ve experienced. The bees have been on a constant mission into the flowers all week, especially on these hot (for Scotland, that is) spring days we’ve had over Easter. […]
Small pearl bordered fritillary
Small pearl bordered fritillary butterfly, Strath Dulnain I think I have correctly identified this butterfly! Summer continues… with stunning hot days of near cloudless blue. I took this in a beautiful wild meadow of grasses, thistles and many wild flowers, in an opening in the pine and birch wood near the River Dulnain, Strathspey. Clouds […]
Dragonflies
Dragonflies, Craigellachie, Aviemore With all the snow on the hills, and autumn in full swing, I thought I’d celebrate these amazing dragonflies from the late summer. First, above, a male Common Darter, which despite its name is relatively uncommon in the Cairngorms National Park area. A male Common Hawker – these are big boys, up […]
Web of light
A beautiful autumn morning with the world covered in dew – and in spider-webs. This is rather up close and personal with the light shining through dewdrops on a spider’s web, hoping its owner didn’t decide to put in an appearance… “… She explained that the buildings were bigger, the stores more opulent, that there […]
Scotch Argus butterfly on thistle
Today was the first sunny, warm day in … a long time! I took a short walk to a favourite natural meadow surrounded by birch woodland, full of wild flowers. There were literally hundreds of Scotch Argus butterflies flying around in clouds, landing 3 or 4 at a time on the thistles. However, they turned […]