September In the Garden - 2021

I'm very much behind with all matters Blogger at the moment due to a recent return from the Isles of Scilly where the last few days were a little blighted by two days with no internet on the island and the ill health of one of the family. We then returned home to find that our electricity supply had failed with the distribution board tripping out, seemingly soon after our departure from home, and that we had three freezers and a fridge full of festering food, virtually all of which had to be disposed of. It then took a couple of days to clean down and decontaminate everything. We have now started re-stocking, so that we can eat!

I have already offered a blog post on my dragon hunting outings in September. This post features some of the observations in our garden for that month. From the header image that is there while this post is current, you will not be surprised to know that it includes - - a dragonfly!

Sunday, 5th September

It is not often that we get a Comma butterfly in our garden, so I was pleased to be able to get a few shots of this one. You can see the 'c-album' on the underwing that the scientific name refers to.

Comma (Polygonia c-album) - garden

We get overspill from the bird feeders, some of which falls onto the soil and germinates. I tend to let some of the sunflowers grow, but usually weed out most of the other spillage. One plant had looked a little dofferent so, out of curiosity, I let it grow. It grew quite tall and then started producing very small, but beautiful, flowers. I think it was probably a linseed plant.
 

Linseed? - garden

That afternoon, while sitting in the conservatory, Lindsay and I noticed what, at first sight, appeared to be four white butterflies having a close-quarters altercation. We initially came to the conclusion that this was males wanting to mate with a female. The numbers soon built up and there were eight of them involved. It was probably around ten minutes before I realised that this was seven Small Whites mobbing a Brimstone butterfly - I have never seen such behaviour in the butterfly world before. As all this happened at probably over 5 metres distance, I did not manage to capture the event well but, hopefully, the following may convey something of the situation.

Small White (Pieris rapae) + Brimstone (Gonepteryx rhamni) (female) - garden

Eventually the Small Whites gave up the chase and the Brimstone rested, giving me time to get up to the top of the garden and get a few close-ups.

Brimstone (Gonepteryx rhamni) (female) - garden

Wednesday, 8th September

Red Admiral is one of our most common butterflies but is also one of the most spectacular. I find its underside just as appealing as its upper side.

Red Admiral (Vanessa atalanta) - garden

Also common, and usually very apparent at this time of year, is the Garden Spider, which is one of UK's largest spiders. They string their large webs over considerable distances, often catching me in the face - to my discomfort! They are quickly on the scene to cocoon their captured prey to add to their larder.
 

Garden Spider (Araneus diadematus) - garden

Saturday, 11th September

Here's the upperside of the Red Admiral, photographed on this day.

Red Admiral (Vanessa atalanta) - garden

Thursday, 16th September

The garden moth trap went out that night, and resulted in 40 moths of 12 species. The two favourites were a Frosted Orange (a 'lifer'), and Common Wainscot (2) purely because it has a subtle elegance.

Frosted Orange (Gortyna flavago) - from garden moth trap

Common Wainscot (Mythimna pallens) - from garden moth trap

The most interesting in some respects, however, were the 11 Lunar Underwing. I have only had this species on a few occasions, and never witnessed the huge range of colour forms. Here are a few of the eleven trapped to give you some idea - yes, that orange one has been confirmed as Lunar Underwing by an expert!

 

Lunar Underwing (Omphaloscelis lunosa) - from garden moth trap

 Friday, 17th September

I noticed several Common Green Shieldbug on one of our fuchsia bushes. They are sometimes known as stink bugs. Here's one of them.

Common Green Shieldbug (Palomena prasina) - garden

While looking at these, I noticed a colourful small beetle-like insect. This turned out to be Pantilius tunicatus - one of the Miridae.

Pantilius tunicatus - garden

Tuesday, 21st September

I have no idea why I continue to get excited whenever we get a Crow visit the garden. They used to be a very scarce visitor, but lately they've become an almost weekly visitor. For whatever reason, here's this month's crow image!

Carrion Crow (Corvus corone) - garden

 

 

Wednesday, 22nd September

In spite of my efforts to attract dragonflies and damselflies by installing a mini-pond last year, this was only the second time this year that we have seen a dragonfly settle in the garden.  At first, I took it to be a female Common Darter and was hoping that it would visit the pond and oviposit (although this is usually done in tandem with a male). However, on closer inspection it turned out to be an immature male. Although it was around for several hours, it never approached the pond and never settled anywhere photogenic. It didn't help either that I was busy painting the garden fence for much of the time and reluctant to get paint on the camera.

Common Darter (Sympetrum striolatum) (immature male) - garden

Later that day, Lindsay and I had been watching a Grey Squirrel that had found a source of peanuts in their shells somewhere in the neighbourhood and was transporting them one-by-one to a stash somewhere else, with the fence at the bottom of our garden being on its route. It was moving at high speed and I thought that I'd missed with every shot, but found I'd actually captured it with one sequence with results that I'm quite pleased with. Here's my favourite.

 

Grey Squirrel (Sciurus carolinensis) - garden

That brings me to the end of this update. A few days later we were off to the Isles of Scilly for a family holiday. However, there were some birding highlights and these will feature in posts to come - when I have managed to sort out the just over three thousand frames I shot off (less than usual for this length of stay).

Until then, take good care of yourself, and Nature.