The Dee and Thereabouts

Tag: ladybirds

  • Seven spots followed by a Comma

    (Thursday 10th July, 2025)

        In the garden for a brief break from work (meetings, meetings…) and it was incredible what I saw in ten minutes: I must have timed it right. First was a Holly blue: these small butterflies usually fly at head height, but this one flew over twice that height again. As I followed its haphazard trajectory, I noticed a red and black ladybird apparently munching away on an ivy leaf. Drawing closer, I saw it was a Seven-spot ladybird.

       

    I watched a Bumblebee (you can just see its bottom) and a much smaller bee extracting nectar from my Hosta plants which have recently bloomed a lovely pale purple. While I was doing so, something caught my vision and I turned to the hedge again. It was a Red admiral which very obligingly alighted on a leaf and spread out its wings to display its lovely markings.

        Two white butterflies then attracted my attention as they flew down the garden, spinning round each other. I thought they might be Large whites but I wasn’t sure, so I picked up my binoculars to get a closer look. Well, it’s difficult enough to follow birds in flight – particularly ‘flitters’ such as Swallows, Martins and Swifts – but trying to keep up with butterflies is a lot harder. Never mind this pair of butterflies (Large whites I can confirm), it was my head that was spinning. However, as I gave up chasing them, I spotted another Red admiral which was chilling out on the Buddleia at the far end of the garden.

        Once again, I reacted to movement and was amazed to see a Comma which landed on a bramble leaf nearby. This was only the second Comma I’ve ever seen, so I was pretty chuffed. On the way back in to the ‘office’, I saw another Holly blue flying high again, unless it was the same one as before. My short but well-earned break turned out to be a butterfly marvel!

  • Butterfly blues

     (Thursday 3rd July, 2025)

    Harlequin ladybird

    Down to the garden after work – I noticed a Harlequin ladybird on the brown bin lid as I went by. This one was a pale yellow with black spots, though what it was doing on the bin lid I have no idea. Jackdaws and Crows predominated today and both corvids were very voluble in their own raucous ways.

    My resident Robin appeared,

        hopping along the ridge of the fence to see what was to be seen, and three Goldfinch seemed to be tree-hopping, twittering as they did so.

        I watched excitedly as a large, yellow butterfly fluttered around the Buddleia at the far end of the garden, and then flew towards me before disappearing over the hedge. This was the first Brimstone I had seen for a couple of years. In fact, this was my first ever sighting of a male Brimstone, having only ever seen one Brimstone previously, which was the lime-green female. (The female was at the entrance to the path that edges the golf club, which is about half a mile away, although further away in time) I am so pleased to have seen one again. I’m not very knowledgeable about butterflies, but I believe the Brimstone is very scarce here in North Wales.

        It was certainly a day for butterflies: besides the Brimstone, there were a few solo, Green-veined whites, and a pair of Large whites twisting around each other as they flew over me to the other side of the hedge. And there was a Holly blue climbing up and down the ivy of the hedge, not unlike a bee in its rather haphazard flight. And I’m sure I saw a male Common blue. Certainly, it was a lot brighter blue than the  mauve-blue shade I associate with the Holly blue, but I was puzzled as this Common blue was flying up and along the high hedge – apparently it’s generally the Holly blue that flies high while other blue butterflies fly low. Unfortunately, I didn’t manage to photograph it so it will have to remain a ‘maybe’.