Sunny Sunday at Cranford Park

After yesterdays horrible weather, today was blue skies with not a wisp of cloud in the sky.

 

I'm glad I picked today to do my weekly butterfly transect. Numbers and species are slowly going down each week, but that is only to be expected. What I also expected was to see the large numbers of one particular species, the stunning Red Admiral....

 

 

Their upper wings are striking and attractive, but it's their underwing that often takes my breath away. It's almost like a stained glass window....

 

This is one of our butterflies whose numbers fluctuate each year due to how many migrate here from Europe. There is normally one major influx from late May to early June, and the females arrive already mated. It's those offspring that we then see in late summer and autumn like now. The food plant of the caterpillar is the common nettle, therefore their numbers here are good. When the buddleia finally go over, you'll find these butterflies in the orchard feeding on fallen apples. In early November, these stunning butterflies will begin to southerly migrate back towards the continent.

 

I had eleven Red Admirals on just one still flowering buddleia this morning, with another resting on the neighbouring brambles. That's the most number I've seen in the past four weeks.

 

So the total tally for todays butterfly transect was a total of 25 butterflies of four species...

12 Red Admiral

3 Green-veined White

1 Comma

10 Speckled Wood

 

After I had completed the transect I went back to Cranford Woods to check on some known fungi sites. I wasn't disappointed at one of them and was delighted to find my first tiny Yellow Stagshorn starting to appear....

 

 

and the Dead Mans Fingers found a few weeks ago are still growing and swelling...

 

and there were promises of new crops of fungi popping up over most of the old moss logs. Not sure on this variety yet, but does look a little like one of the sulphurs...

 

On the woodland edge I spotted a Kestrel....

 

 

and along one of the paths I was really chuffed to find a 7-spot Ladybird, a very welcome change from all the Harlequins that I've been finding over the last few weeks....

 

 

There were a few Hoverfly species around but this monster was the most prolific....

The Hornet mimic - Volucella zonaria....

 

Dock bugs were also abundant too, and I know I post loads of photos of these critters in my blog posts, but there's just something about them I like...

 

Next weekend the Stable block at Cranford Park will be open as part of the London Open House Weekend and I'll be volunteering in there on Sunday. The Secret Garden will also be open for visitors, and on the Sunday there will be the usual motorcycles on display courtesy of the Christian Motorcyclists Association. St Dunstans church will also be open and BBQ and refreshments available.