A few years ago, my daughter spotted this moth on the wall of her house…a Death’s-head hawkmoth…a visitor to this country and very hard to find.
She observed it for a few days, as it stayed on the wall, but sadly, a few days later, it dropped on to the ground and didn’t survive.
I couldn’t believe the size of it when she brought it to us. She didn’t want it and so my husband said that he would keep it preserved in a case…and I’m glad that he did! It’s occasionally a talking point!
Meanwhile…
This week we had the company of a Box- tree moth (above) as it flew into the lounge and this Chestnut moth ( below) also joined us!
And then, in the week, my son messaged me to say that he was walking along a road near to where he lives and on the pavement, he spotted this, below.
At first he thought it was a curled up leaf but on further investigation, he realised that it was an Eyed Hawkmoth caterpillar. He took it home and put it on a tree in his garden…
I love the fact that my family has such an interest in nature.
Meanwhile, my son in law has made two ponds in his garden…this being one of them:
And so…my elder grandson, who is also especially interested in nature, started to observe closely and take photos of what’s going on in their pond…and he was keen to send me the images, his first being the photo above, in which he correctly identified the Gatekeeper butterfly.
The above photo isn’t very clear but there is a Stag beetle that he identified and in the photo below, a dragonfly, laying eggs.
What really excites me is that he’s finding so much…FOR FREE!
It’s all there to be seen if only you open your eyes.
As my husband did, recently…he spotted a Southern Hawker Dragonfly on our tree fern…
…as well as this beautiful Demoiselle, on a plant in the mini pond…
And meanwhile, little William also has the ‘bug’…start them early, is what I say!
I hope your grandson reported the stag beetle to the Great Stag Hunt, organised by PTES (People's Trust for Endangered Species) . It's easily done online and an important record as stag beetles are endangered, though relatively common in the south of the UK.
ReplyDeleteI haven't seen any this year in our garden.
It's great to see all your family are so interested in nature and that's an amazing selection of insects!
ReplyDeleteWonderful! I'm not very good when it comes to identifying, but I usually take a photograph and google things, once I get home. I need to give our little container pond a bit of an overhaul. We haven't had any visitors to it, this year. X
ReplyDeleteBrilliant discoveries, there is so much to see and enjoy out there and on your doorstep if you take the time to look.
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