La Pointe du Grouin revisited: Coastal butterflies and spiders

We are making the most of better weather after a rather dire August so took the opportunity to visit the coast again on Wednesday. After moules frites at Port Mer near Cancale, we went up the road to the nearby headland at la Pointe du Grouin, which is one of my favourite places for bug and butterfly hunting. There are still a fair few tourists around but it's hardly heaving with them now that the kids are back at school. It's not so great for wildflowers at this time as many have finished but there's enough for the later flying butterflies to feed on.

Post from last July all about this place, with loads of insects.

Views along the coast looking westward.

Not knowing much about coastal wildflowers I think these colourful
seed heads in the foreground are Rock Samphire (Crithmum maritimum).

A number of shrubs were covered in webs both from spiders and from Ermine moth caterpillars, which spin silks to protect themselves and clothe entire shrubs with their silken tents. But it was the Garden Spiders hanging in the shrubs which caught my eye as they are looking particularly big and colourful now!

Garden Spider or Cross Orb Weaver (Araneus diadematus).

This Cross Orb Weaver is snacking on something, with a wrapped up
dessert waiting for later.... I love it when they turn their buggy lunches into
something that bears no resemblance to the insect in its past life. :-)

Hoorah I found one hanging the other way around showing its beautiful markings!

An old looking boat (no I don't know anything about boats!)
sailing between the headland and Ile des Landes.

Butterflies again. We were here with my brother in late July and I also saw some Brown Argus (despite the name, it's a Blue in the Lycaenidae family) back then. As the only Blues (or Coppers) I've seen at home have been Holly Blues, then the tiny butterflies other than Skippers have been in short supply. I was pleased to see many Small Coppers and finally got the chance to get in close for some shots. There were Brown Argus flitting about with these Small Coppers but they didn't want me taking their photo except from afar! I also saw a Swallowtail, which considering there is tons of wild fennel growing on the headland shouldn't be surprising, but in July I checked out a number of plants for Swallowtail caterpillars and surprisingly didn't find a single one.

I saw some Brown Argus here back in July too.
This time, having seen quite a few Small Coppers about and often on the same plant
for size comparison, these Brown Argus were considerably smaller!

Small Copper (Lycaena phlaeas) feeding on Ragwort.

Small Copper (Lycaena phlaeas) feeding on Ragwort.

And another Small Copper (Lycaena phlaeas) feeding on Ragwort! This one without chunks missing.
Of course I took tons of photos - I don't often get a chance to get right up close.

On the way home we stopped in at the fishing lake at Combourg as we go past it. This isn't the big lake which the Chateau overlooks but a smaller one with a footpath all the way around. There was more dragonfly life than bird life here but as usual, just like at home, the only dragonflies who would stop and pose were the ones that I already have photos of...... and the Hawkers just kept on flying around and around as per usual so no chance of a photo!

Something worrying I noticed here were the amount of very sad looking willow trees with brown leaves. I haven't heard of any insect or disease affecting willows like this - oaks, ash and horse chestnut, yes. Very disturbing.

Combourg's smaller lake, with Purple Loosestrife (Lythrum salicaria)
in the foreground.

Black-tailed Skimmer (Orthetrum cancellatum) with very tatty wings but still perfectly able to fly.

A fresher looking Black-tailed Skimmer (Orthetrum cancellatum).

I'm glad to say that both butterflies and dragonflies have perked up at home too this week thanks to some warmth and sun! Long may it last. :-)

Flies, flying things, and things that are called flies but aren't

Well here I am on my new iMac which is pretty super-duper and very fast! My blog and the font look a bit different but I'll get used to it. Comparing my photos on my old PC monitor to this giant screen is a shock to the system - a very nice shock!

Anyhow here are some flying critters seen over the weekend. The first two are a couple of Volucella hoverflies that I hadn't seen before. I'd been over the lane in the orchard picking pears then had a wander up the road with my camera. Thanks to the recent rain the wildflowers growing on the verges and in the ditches are doing very well. I'm pretty sure it's Hogweed (Heraclum sphodylium) in the first set of photos - a large umbellifer that grows in all the ditches around here. 

Hoverfly (Volucella inanis).

Hoverfly (Volucella pellucens).

A fly of some sort feeding on a Dahlia.

I'm hoping for more butterflies this week as the temps are due to rise. There are a few Peacocks and Red Admirals around which I associate with this time of year, but few and far between. I'm used to seeing loads of them (and Commas too) feasting on rotting plums and feeding on my Sedums, but so far it's just not happening!

Speckled Wood (Pararge aegeria).

A tatty Red Admiral (Vanessa atalanta) on Feverfew.

The Peacocks (Inachis io) I've seen lately all seem rather small.

Zephirine Drouhin the rose has been looking tatty lately but has
managed a few more flowers - and who is that handsome dude on the leaf?

I don't know the ID but it's a wasp of some sort and a very handsome beast I reckon.

This Carder Bee matches the Dahlia perfectly.

I also saw this female Scorpionfly in my orchard. The banks of the stream are covered with nettles, thistles and brambles, perfect for wildlife. There are many orb weaving spiders too which is just what the Scorpionflies like, as they are scavengers feeding on dead insects and sometimes stealing from spiders' webs. They also eat live aphids so are welcome in my garden, and I have seen them in the veg patch a number of times. Scorpionflies are not flies despite the name and belong to the order Mecoptera.

Scorpionfly (Panorpa communis) stealing a spider's dinner.

Finally, something that can't fly yet as it's still only in the nymph stage but it was looking pretty on my Hydrangea so it got its picture taken.

Common Green Shield Bug (Palomena prasina) nymph on a Hydrangea petal.

I'm glad I didn't need to write reams for this post as I'm still getting used to a new keyboard, the only difficult thing about this computer change. 

Have a good week everyone!

Fruit frenzy but going quieter on the bug front

It's certainly harvest time and that means time to preserve some of this bounty, especially the fruit. I'm only spending time jamming and chutneying the fruit that needs to be cooked from fresh, so raspberries and blackberries are in the freezer and can be made into jam and jelly respectively later on. Freezer space is at a premium at this time of year so I also had to make some tomato sauce to make a bit of room in my chest freezer. I've still got three huge plastic bags full of frozen tomatoes and loads more ripening, despite the cooler weather.

I'm keeping busy..... the Mixed Fruit Chutney has damsons in it as well as tomatoes,
and the Sweet Aubergine Preserve is a middle eastern recipe and amazingly delicious.

The rain that came over two weeks ago was just in time for the plums; however many of them split open or completely burst because they'd been dry and were then subjected to rather a lot of moisture all at once. Of course that's letting in rot so the greengages are spoiling at a rate of knots, but I managed to make my jam and it's the first time in three years I've had enough fruit for jam from the tree. The purple plums have also started rotting but there's only so much one can eat or preserve anyway, and just when you need some handy neighbours to take some off your hands, they all go away on holiday!

Greengage, known as Reine Claude here in France, and an unknown purple dessert plum.

Autumn fruiting Raspberries 'Zeva' and thornless cultivated Blackberries (with a Dock Bug).

Everyone loves blackberries! Dock Bug (Coreus marginatus) nymph left and (I think)
the Cricket is a male Speckled Bush Cricket (Leptophyes punctatissima).

We usually see juvenile Green Woodpeckers in summer pecking away at the ants' nests in the lawn, and since taking these photos recently I've been seeing and hearing them regularly. They are loud!

A male juvenile Green Woodpecker (Picus viridis).

Male juvenile Green Woodpecker (Picus viridis) again looking a bit fluffy.

It was time for my OH to do some varnishing but when he went to unhook the bedroom shutters he found about a dozen bats roosting behind one of them. Some flew off but he had to close the shutter carefully to protect the rest of them, so no varnishing for that shutter that day! Now I missed what came next but I'm kind of glad that I did. As he was varnishing the window frames and the other shutter, a bat came back and started circling around. My OH retreated slightly and started to close the windows so that it could go back behind the shutter, when all of a sudden out of nowhere came a Sparrowhawk who caught and flew off with the poor bat! Oops.

I assume they are Pipistrelles which are common bats but they look bigger in the photo, but I think there were several of them all grouped together here. I couldn't do any better than a silhouette and was trying not to think of the drop as I leant out of the window!

Bats roosting behind the bedroom shutter!

Here are a few tatty creatures seen recently. Summer feels like it's really coming to an end with the cooler, more cloudy weather and there are far fewer butterflies than I'd expect at this time of year. Hopefully it will pick up in September.

I'm not sure what the bee is, possibly a Bombus sylvarum.

Most of the butterflies I'm seeing are Browns or Whites - here's a Gatekeeper (Pyronia tithonus)
 feeding on my Garlic Chives - another odd thing about this year because this plant is usually
covered in bees, flies and some butterflies, but it seems fairly unpopular this year.

And still the only 'Blue' I've seen here in my garden this year - this is a female Holly Blue
(Celastrina argiolus). They don't normally open their wings when resting or feeding,
so I was lucky. Apparently they only do this in weak sunshine.
Weak sunshine is what we are grateful for right now!

Female Holly Blue (Celastrina argiolus).

I nearly didn't take a photo of this bug as I thought it was a Sloe/Hairy Shield Bug - luckily I checked because I'm wrong. I then spent half an hour IDing it only to find when I was keywording my photos that I've already seen and logged this species this year - it would have been quicker to do a search for shield bugs in my photo library! Judging by where I live in France, then using this guide I would hazard a guess at Carpocoris purpureipennis, but it's too difficult to say, so let's just say it's one of the Carpocoris species.

Carpocoris sp., an interesting bug with little info about it on the internet.
Obviously it likes running around on hairy arms. :-)

Carpocoris sp. doing the 'biz', seen back in June.

There appears to be an exchange of fluid going on here -
looking at my other photos that droplet disappeared, so I hope it went where intended! ;-)

The eight day weather forecast looks dismal for the next week, although I will appreciate whatever rain we may get today as the garden is already drying out.

I may go quiet for a while and that's because I have a new desktop arriving this week - and not just any old desktop. I'm jumping ship so it's bye-bye Microsoft, and hello to the world of Apple and iMacs, which could be interesting for a few days weeks? until I get used to it! :-)