Where have all the flowers gone?

Cloudy with a few sunny spells, 21°, breezy WSW.

Rather quiet out at Lollingdon today with all the regulars present and a very similar experience for Alan along the river.

One thing that strikes me on my walks around the village and surrounding areas is the complete lack of wild flowers along field margins, hedgerows and road verges! 

This is why gardens are so important for pollinators as the local farms and local authorities do not appear to be onboard with this!

Apart from a lot of gardens there are only a few areas in Cholsey where wild flowers are encouraged to grow.  

Dragonflies: Banded Demoiselle, Azure Damselfly, Common Blue Damselfly, Blue-tailed Damselfly, White-legged Damselfly & Four-spotted Chaser. Per Alan.

Butterflies: Dingy Skipper, Brimstone, Large White, Orange Tip, Common Blue, Small Blue, Speckled Wood & Small Heath.

Moths: Five-spot Burnet.

Speckled Wood ↕

Brimstone

Female & young Great-spotted Woodpecker

Red-eyed Damselfly & Banded Demoiselle courtesy Alan

Small Blue courtesy Alan

Pyramidal Orchid courtesy Alan

Five-spot Burnet courtesy Alan

A little of everything

Another sunny day, 28°, light SSW.

June is generally a quiet month out at Lollingdon. Our resident birds and summer visitors are busy rearing young and any mammals are difficult to locate in the high crops.

Insects appear in numbers this time of year but as it is farmland and not managed environmentally the diversity is not there unfortunately.

Anyhow, 2 Kestrel were hunting the hill today and 2 Raven flew south east over the hill and a few Swift Feeding over the area and a Hobby seen flying towards Aston.

The adult Black-headed Gull still around and foraging in the Millennium field area most mornings.

Dragonflies: Banded Demoiselle, Azure Damselfly and Emperor Dragonfly.

Butterflies: Small Skipper, Large Skipper, Brimstone, Large White, Small White, Red Admiral, Small Tortoiseshell, Comma, Speckled Wood, Marbled White, Meadow Brown, Ringlet and Small Heath.

Moths: Silver-Y and Cinnabar. And a Five-spot Burnet in a Cholsey garden. Per Alan Baker. 

 Yellowhammer

 Banded Demoiselle

 Corn Bunting

 Small White

Meadow Brown

Also a new moth for Cholsey recorded recently. A Hornet Clearwing. Have requested permission to post a photo on Cholsey Wildlife and credit the finder but no response as yet and apparently the county recorder for moths in Berks, Bucks and Oxon is interested in this record as it is a scarce species.

The photo is of one from last July in Wallingford. Courtesy Alan Dawson.

And another new moth, a Yarrow Plume caught by Tony Rayner last week and following on from one in Aston Tirrold before that. Per VG.