Saturday 9th September

As suspected I never got out for a last trip to the Solway Coast in search of late butterflies. On the one day I considered it, the forecast suddenly reversed in favour of widespread gloom.

Bike rides have not been very productive either as they have mainly been training rides for next week's cyling holiday round Lake Constance.  However it was quite interesting to spot a red kite just South of Moniaive on Wednesday and to notice there was a good number of pipits sitting on the telephone wires at one point.  A red admiral nearly flew into my face.

There have been just a couple of red admirals visiting the last tufts of buddleia as the weather has been cooler and brought a fair amount of rain. On Monday, one was flying around in the drizzle and looked to be struggling.  After it settled on some bamboo I decided to bring it into the sun room where it soon attached itself to a curtain rail and became motionless for 24 hours.

I started to wonder if it had gone into hibernation, but eventually it strted flapping against the window.  So I took it out when there was a sunny patch and it duly took off up high above the houses.

One other thing that turned up on my neighbour's garden wall was this wee moth, which I haven't noticed before.

Marbled Carpet

A flick through the Butterfly Conservation website hasn't produced an obvious match but asking around suggests it could be a marbled carpet. Whether it's a dark or common marbled carpet, I couldn't say.