There was a bit of sunshine on Sunday afternoon, so we grabbed the opportunity to go for a walk around the Country Park. To be honest, I wasn’t expecting to see much as the weather had been a bit dull, wet and cold, but I was pleasantly surprised.
At the start of the walk we were greeted by numerous flowers, filling two of our senses with bright colours and heady scents, then we heard before we saw more than one song thrush singing for all he was worth, a female blackcap off to her nest with take out in her beak as well as the always present chaffinches, male and female.
It was, however, the number and variety of insects that surprised me the most considering the weather of the last few days. Although I only saw a couple of white butterflies, the umbellifers (mainly hogweed I think) were flowering away and teeming with life. I saw bees, flies and hoverflies galore, including this really pretty hoverfly that I had never seen before.
There were also a number of insects flitting about in the sunshine that caught my attention. Some of these finally settled on leaves and had the biggest antennae I had ever seen. They looked moth-like, and on googling for info discovered that they were longhorn moths (Nemophora degeerella) – certainly well-named. According to the UK Moths site, the males (which have the long antenna) ‘dance’ in the sunshine in May and June and are quite numerous. These were a first for me however. This picture below shows how long the antennae are – about three times the length of the body.
So, the moral of the story is, there is something of interest whatever the weather.