A Year in the Valley

A Year in the Valley

Discovering the flora and fauna in a small square of Portmellon Valley

  • BioBlitz
  • The Rules
  • Tally
  • Map
  • Bird Page
  • Contact Form
  • Spotted in July

    Spotted in July

    My best photo of July was taken just after we returned from holiday (16 July) – a male beautiful demoiselle. I was hoping it might be a banded demoiselle because of the translucent bit at the base of each wing, but banded demoiselles have a definite ‘thumb print’ of shade on translucent wings.

    Things that flowered:

    16-Jul-24: Astilbe or false goat’s beard.
    16-Jul-24: Figwort
    16-Jul-24: male azure damselfly
    16-Jul-24: Common red soldier beetles on the ragwort

    The ragwort had come into flower and the cinnabar moth that we saw earlier in the summer had obviously been at work:

    I was hoping to see them growing bigger with more defined stripes, but I didn’t. I wondered if a bird had eaten them despite their waspish colouring, but I found out that they have few predators, as the ragwort poison is stored in the body of a cinnabar caterpillar, even into moth-hood, and their vivid stripes act as a warning of their foul taste to birds.

    At the end of the month, I saw the final instar of a blue shieldbug. The sheer number and variety of sheildbugs has delighted me since I started naturewatching. The intricate patterning of some of the instars and adults is amazing.

    I wondered why the instar wasn’t blue in colour, but if you look at the darker head and wing-buds they have a green-blue sheen to them.

    Daisy D

    05 August 2024
    Other

©2023 All rights reserved.

  • October 2024
  • September 2024
  • August 2024
  • July 2024
  • June 2024
  • May 2024
  • April 2024
  • March 2024
  • February 2024
  • January 2024
  • December 2023
  • November 2023
  • October 2023
  • September 2023
  • August 2023
  • July 2023
  • June 2023
  • Spotted in September
  • Spotted in August
  • Spotted in July
  • Spotted in June
  • Conclusions