Foxes and fawns interacting

I woke up early at 6am and looking out the window saw the Fallow Deer fawns playing in the East Field. It is entertaining watching them leap vertically kicking out their back legs as they egg each other on. As I was watching suddenly two foxes entered the scene and I suspect they were eyeing up their chances with one of the fawns so we had a swirl of deer and foxes like something out of a Disney film. The fawns weren't having it and even chased a fox briefly. After a few minutes the foxes retreated and sat in the long grass wondering what to do next. I imagined they were looking glum! Only managed one photo that included both animals and it's not a very good one.

New Species - Plum Fruit Moth

It's a bumper plum year this year so I am currently filling the freezer with them. Every so often there is a tiny orange and pink caterpillar in the plum and looking this up I find it is the Plum Fruit Moth larva (Grapholita funebrana) which was not on my moth list. We have four plum and damson trees but the moth also uses Blackthorn as a larval food plant so I expect there are plenty around here.

New Species - Clouded Yellow

It's been a few years since I've recorded a new butterfly species and whilst I did see a Clouded Yellow a couple of miles away recently I wasn't expecting to see one here. We used to see these immigrant butterflies some years in Kent and Sussex when we lived there but this must be a bumper year for them to reach here. All to do with the heatwave I guess. The one I saw was a female - I'm hoping she was aiming to lay some eggs!

Wasps

Social wasps must be one of the most effective predators of aphids, mites and other tiny insects as well as being important pollinators. There is a nest of the Common Wasp (Vespula vularis) in the stone walls just outside our bedroom aqdn I can watch them in action. A month or so ago there was sporadic entrances into the walls - yesterday it was running at one per second. There must be thousands in the nest and lots of pests being eaten and lots of pollination going on.

Areas for invertebrates

I'm going to leave bigger areas uncut for invertebrates this year. I'm particularly thinking of the Marbled White butterflies which like some long and tussocky grasses but then lots of other invertebrates do as well. I'll leave some areas in each field. Thius is the patch in the East field.

Hay cut in progress

I started cutting the fields on 6 July but just a small part in the first week. A bigger week this week (13th to 19th July) so I am about a quarter done. Given the dry weather is likely to remain for the time being I should be able to reach the end of July with about half done, which is about the right schedule given that I want to allow some parts to remain uncut until late August. I will also leave slightly more uncut this year to help the invertebrates.

Butterflies

It has been a big year for quantities of butterflies. There are a large number of Gatekeepers currently and also Small Whites. Earlier there were lots of Meadow Browns and Ringlets. It's also been a better year for Marbled Whites and Holly Blues. Not so good for Common Blues and there seem to be fewer and fewer of what used to be very common butterflies such as the Small Tortoiseshell and Peacock. Still this extended hot dry period should allow them all to breed successfully. Photo - Gatekeepers on Wild Marjoram by our gate.