day 25 #30dayswild butterfly spot and rainbows

I spotted our first Meadow Brown butterflies in our garden yesterday morning before setting off to Gloucestershire for a family garden party.

We spent the afternoon and evening outside in a beautiful garden enjoying not only the company of family but also for a good half an hour a spectacular thunderstorm around 3pm while sat under gazebo, the squall was the first of many other showers or heavier periods of rain, during the rest of the afternoon and early evening so the gazebo was abandoned and most of us took shelter in the garage where the refreshments were. We did however also see some sunshine and as a consequence the obligatory rainbows

The day ended with fire pits and sparklers, several moths at this time were also flying around,  A fabulous finale to a brilliant day and one that will be talked about for a long time to come!

Day 20 #30daysWild - taking time to look up!

I finally managed to find some time for a walk early evening today, after a busy day after our week off!
I only walked up our lane but I often find something to stop to look at and photograph and today was no exception.
I stopped at my favourite oak along the lane and looked up. it is a magnificent tree and today it featured as my 30 days Wild instagram photo.

There were of course a few birds and insects that caught my attention too including this Speckled Wood butterfly

and this Scorpion Fly

and this unknown so if anyone would like to provide an ID I would be very grateful

Day 17 - 30 Days Wild - cloud watching

Today we arrived back home in Staffordshire having spent the last week in Cumbria, so we spent a fair amount of time in the car followed by unpacking and then shopping for the weekend, but we did have time to sit out for a while this afternoon enjoying a cup of tea and some cake ( yes we had some left over from our holiday!),  watching the buzzards soar and the kestrel hover over the common and the clouds, It was just nice to sit and watch!

I did though have a walk around our small garden too, so much had shot up, it looks as though I have some gardening to do over the next few days too.

oh and I found this large skipper sheltering in the comfrey

day 16 - #30daysWild a walk in a downpour

today we took a walk in the rain!
and as we sheltered under a tree we were joined by this lacewing that flew in for some shelter!

not a great photo as the light was very poor, the tree was being buffeted by the wind and the photo was taken with my phone!

Before the rain though, I did manage to photograph a couple of butterflies
A common blue

and a Meadow Brown

both firsts for this year

Day 12 #30DaysWild - chasing butterflies

This morning Mr S and I went for a walk to look for fritillary butterflies, hoping to see both 'Small Pearl-bordered'  and 'Dark Green' .
We saw plenty of 'Small Pearl-bordered', but unfortunately no Dark Green -

We also saw a Small Heath and a Brown Argus butterfly

and hundreds of these Chimney Sweeper moths

... and occasionally the butterflies just had to share the same flowers with bees

and this photo sums up our morning filled with fritillaries and chimney sweeper moths

Day 5 - #30daysWild - borage, cloudless sky and nature walk around our local common

After a chilly start the sun soon broke through and then we were in cloudless Staffordshire for the rest of the day!

So a day of more gardening with the the company of a fearless robin, who kept appearing near to where I chose to dig! could this be the year I finally get a robin to feed from my hand? any tips on how I go about this would be very welcome!
One of my tasks in the garden was to thin out the borage, which sort of fitted into one of the random wild acts on the 30daysWild App, so today I selected 'sow borage for bees' and adapted it to thinned out borage for bees. I sowed my borage seeds during last years 30 Days Wild and we enjoyed a mass of them in late summer, which then self seeded for this year, so reluctantly today I pulled up several seedlings from the bed, but have still left at least 20 borage plants growing so again I am looking forward to a mass of blue flowers along with the bees and the holly blue butterfly that enjoyed them last year.

After an hour or so of gardening we decided to go for a walk around our neighbouring common, we kept an eye out for small pearl bordered fritillary butterflies, but alas there were none, we haven't seen any for a few years now, but I remain hopeful that they are still here it's just that we haven't spotted them!
We did however see our first Painted Lady of the year which just happened to fly onto the only guelder rose on the common as I was photographing the flowers.

We also spotted this stunning broad bodied chaser dragonfly

a Mother Shipton moth

and lots of these micro moths glyphipterix thrasonella

but the star of the day had to be the fantastic show of ragged robin, probably the best I have ever seen on the common

When we returned home my attention once more was focused on our friendly robin, I became a human bird table for an hour, sitting still on our lawn for an hour arms held out with two palms full of seed. Needless to say I had no takers but it was very relaxing!