JERSEY TIGER MOTH - Euplagia quadripunctaria

Well here is a turn up for the books!

I first saw one of these several days back and thought it was mi first Garden Tiger Moth?! It flew in front of me a couple hundred yards from my house in Enfield and then landed on a wall. The only camera I, rather annoyingly, had on me was my phones camera but no sooner had I removed it from a pocket and the Moth launched back towards me and then up and over a fence!

Around two or three days later I had just left my house when another, or indeed thew same one, looped over my garden fence and then landed on the wood. I shot back inside the house to grab the camera only to find it had disappeared on being back in the garden?!

Darn it!

Than I was moving around slowly when it flew across me from right to left and up under some conifers before landing again! Then I got some shots and some videos!

It was then that I noticed it did not look like a Garden Tiger Moth and thought it must be something different!

After some excited texts from my brothers I realised it was a Jersey Tiger Moth, Euplagia quadripunctaria.

Now there are three videos and this thing was stunning in flight due to its deep orange underwings, which you may just get a glimpse of at the end of one of the videos?!

VIDEOS ...

THE ORIGINAL RED EAR RETURNS

I am sure this is the smaller of two Terrapins I know quite locally that last year I did not spot?

The one I did see I am sure is a couple inches bigger than this one? Anyhoo this was the second Terrapin seen that day and spotted between some bushes while on my bike on the way home! I was of course looking out for these ones, there were two originally, so not a big deal spotting it really.

THE RETURN OF THE DANCING DEMOISELLES

Ahh my old favourites return!

Graceful on the wind like that of a pirouetting ballet dancer when the reality is that other flying insects live in mortal fear of. A hunting and expertly winged predatory eagle eyed death on the wing Damselfly.

PAIR OF MATING DAMSELFIES

A apr of Damselflies mating up at Cottonmill Stream.

A SPIKY CATERPILLAR

From my young days with a younger brother and if memory serves me well this distant, from me, caterpillar may well be a Peacock. I am sure spikes and nettles rings bells of Peacocks? Probably Small Tortoiseshells?! LOL!

A GOLDEN COLOURED DRAGONFLY

A very peculiar coloured Dragonfly, not Damselfly because it holds it wings out and that is one difference between the two.

Probably a female Darter of some sort and there are Common Darters in the area. This is at Cottonmill Stream which is a welll known Dragonfly sanctuary. Not as many as the authorites would have you believe, not even close but I have so far seen three or four large Dragonflies of the Hawker group (Brown, err Migrants last year and the other looking like that one, Emperor), Banded Demoiselles are always in large and impressive numbers too. Also seen Red Eyed Damselflies and pictured them but rubbish. Hopefully this year some good and sharp shots.

Hairy Legged Damsels ... errrr ... or was it White Legged Damselflies?! Lol!

BEE ORCHIDS 2014

Now there did not seem to be many of these about, but I have to go back and double check a few things!

Last year the surrounding plants were a great deal lower than they are this year and I cannot emphasize this enough! So I do not know if I just cannot see the others, which might be why I have not found them previously, or much more likely that the excessive and constant Winter, Spring and early Summer rain has allowed the normal plants to block out the light from the Orchids?

There was one Bee Orchid, shown in one of the videos, which was much taller than the others and all of them were much taller than the ones I saw last year.

Bee Orchids Patch One

A nice example of a Bee Orchid in Patch One

Bee Orchids Patch Two