Flies and Butterflies

I noted with interest that the Big Butterfly Count has recorded an overall increase in sightings this year.  The reckoning is that the rainy spring was good for caterpillars.  Whilst I can't dispute this I still think that early-emerging species suffered.  While the multi-brooded speckled wood recovered after a slow start, I think the orange tip had a bad year.  It doesn't feature in the Count as it's no longer on the wing in mid-July.  Green-veined white numbers are confirmed down and it seemed to me that it had a short good spell at the end of July but wasn't seen much before that.  Small white was more considerably outvoted by large white here than generally.

The buddleia is now fading fast and it's a race to the bottom for the last garden sighting.  This week there has just been the odd individual red admiral and just one small tortoiseshell and yesterday I felt lucky to capture red admiral and large white (plus a few flies) together.  There had also been a speckled wood moments before.

Red Admiral with Large White

Meanwhile the holly blue count is up to 13, but none in the last few days.

It has been flies rather than bees that have caught my attention lately, causing a bit of a problem as I'm only at the guessing game stage when it comes to identifying them.

for example last week I discovered a spider (absolutely no attempt at identification!) about to devour this rather hairy orange fly.

Spider with Fly

It appears the fly maybe a yellow dung fly, which immediately reduced any sympathy I may have felt for it.

You may also observed another wee fly with an orange abdomen on the butterfly snap above.  I encountered this one again the other day, and it seems to roughly fit the description of the common orange legionnaire.

Common Orange Legionnaire?

Well not so common to me as I can't remember seeing them before.

Lastly  i topped up the bird nuts a bit today and was quickly visited by a another nuthatch, this time a male.

Nuthatch with Great Tit and Blue Tit

I'm keeping my eye out for ivy coming into flower in the hope of nectaring butterflies or an ivy bee, but it's early days yet.