Red Admiral and Small Copper

A few weeks can make a  difference.

Last Saturday I was in Alnwick again, when we started out on the same dog walk we did last time I was there.  All the meadow by the River Aln had been cut back and as a result there were less butterflies around but in a way it was more interesting as I was pleased to see a couple of small coppers around and another two wall brown showed up as well.  All the other species we saw last time had disappeared apart from the odd meadow brown.

Small Copper

I was well pleased about the small copper as I was starting to think I wouldn't see one this year.  Perhaps they do better later on in the season around here.

There were no butterflies around when we took a walk along the River Wear at Chester-le-Street on Monday after the cricket was cancelled because of Covid 19.  However we did see a couple of very pale looking big slugs, which I thought abnormal though apparently variations in colour are frequent in this species, arion ater.

                                                                             

Arion ater

Things have changed a little in the garden too.  The weather has remained cool and overcast but when the sun has appeared, it has been the occasional small tortoiseshell and red admiral that have been visiting the buddleia bush and not the groups of peacocks that predominated last week.  So my theory that red admiral and peacock are infrequently seen together continues.  The only butterfly that doesn't seem attracted by buddleia is the speckled wood, which occasionally lands on the hedge or shrubs instead.

Red Admiral

Also popular have been the suet balls in the cage feeder at the bottom of the garden, which have brought in good numbers of long-tailed tits from time to time.