Tuesday 13 October 2015

Autumn Insects

Under last night's clear skies - which showed some signs of an aurora - the temperature at this, the warm end of the village, dropped below 5C, so the sheep woke to a heavy dew....

....which the warm sun was soon burning off the grass. This picture was taken from the Ormsaigmore beach looking across to the slipway and Shore Cottage.

In the wonderfully clear air, and with the bracken and heather dying on the hills, the colours in the low sun are vivid. This picture shows the bay below Lighthouse View croft in Ormsaigbeg, with Glengorm Castle just visible on the opposite, Mull shore.

As the temperature rose so the insects appeared, plenty of honey and bumble bees, hover flies and 'ordinary' flies, and just a few late butterflies - this a peacock feeding on the michaelmas daisies in our front garden, where....

....it was followed by a red admiral. The butterflies are only just about functioning, very slow, and therefore relatively easy to get close to for a photograph.

All the insects seem to like the escallonia along the front boundary of the house, and it particularly seems to draw this common day-flying moth, the silver Y.

The temperature soared to 16C by midday, though in the bright sunshine and light southerly wind it seemed much warmer; and the forecast is for another warm, though slightly less sunny day tomorrow.

1 comment:

  1. Hopefully the Peacock and Red Admiral will find a safe place to hibernate and you will see them again in the warm days of spring. If they are very slow in the cold, you might try lightly dotting the thorax with Tippex to identify them.

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