Still haven't seen many Butterflies and not that many Moths... apart from the hapless creatures that get indoors and need deportation.
There is a local 'oasis' amidst the housing infill... left for grass, scrub and wild flowers. Quite large.. about 3 football pitches... but not many seem to know that it is there... just a few dog walkers.
Haven't visited for  a while, but it was a real pleasure, on a sunny afternoon,  to watch Dog, ''nosing around' in the flowering 'Small Scabious'... and raising dozens of Butterflies...   

Does one assume that the Countryside has been infested by Pythons? They were amusing, but i never really got into them... (Ma / Grandma did not approve!)... so don't recognise sketch.
Reality... two' nice' young Girls, (LTTB! ) down 'The Club'... happily sucking on 'lollipops'... one with a 'Grub' inside... the other, a 'Grasshopper'... even more repellent when the legs began to appear! BUT, that's Girls for you! LOL!   

Aah..........the uptight British.

On a very hot and sunny day today, lots of species of butterflies seen, which was nice, given they've had a very poor start to the year. If you have the time or inclination, the Big Butterfly Count started today:

https://bigbutterflycount.butterfly-conservation.org/

I saw a whole ONE butterfly yesterday......I'll have to look up which species......But for the first time since we've been over here, I saw a dragonfly.

Apparently on our bit of land that's part of a SSSI, there's a rare species of damsel fly...and a rare butterfly......(a Marsh Fritillary).......Never ever seen either of those.
The other thing that's missing this year is the Grasshopper Warbler....Never seen one of those.....But this is the first year I haven't heard one.

Cheers - Phil.

Right.....The next polecat I see 'bimbling' across the road.....I'm going to flatten it with the Technomobile.

The story so far.......

At three o'clock this morning, I was woken by some VERY strange sounds outside...(didn't sound quite like a fox, 'calling'..but it was very weird)....So much so, that I thought I must have been dreaming.....Back to sleep.

This morning....Out to do my usual early checks on the 'outside beasts'....Feed the little barn cat....Check the two gees, in the big barn.....Hmmmm.
There are a lot of chicken feathers outside the chicken 'pen'....(Thinks...I'll tell Von, when she wakes up.)

Von gets up.....Two chickens missing....and a trail of feathers.
Now....There's absolutely NO WAY a fox could...a).....get into the pen....and b)....get out again.

Whether a polecat got in (I could accept that)......got mugged by a fox....then went back for another one...I don't know....But the evidence is fairly damning
This is WAR.

Cheers - Phil.

Leave the Polecats alone.....

Send the Pole cats back to Poland where they come from?

Quote from: Ithoriel on 17 July 2021, 11:26:32 AM
Send the Pole cats back to Poland where they come from?

Ohhhhh Nasty !!!

Quote from: Lord Kermit of Birkenhead on 17 July 2021, 11:13:27 AM
Leave the Polecats alone.....

No....(Bog off)...If I'm in the car, I'll aim to flatten it  .....If I'm in the barn, and see one..... I'll blow its blanking head off. (The noise will probably upset the gee-gees.....Too bad....Oh dear, what a shame, never mind.)

Cheers - Mr Nice.

We're seeing more Monarch butterflies this year, which is nice. Planting milkweed helps the species recover from near extinction, and we have plenty of those in our garden.

On the downside there's a disease killing swathes of songbirds in the Midwest, and it's getting closer to Toledo. The local parks service recommends shutting down and disinfecting bird tables and baths where birds congregate until such time as the disease is over. It's a bloody shame as we're attracting plenty of birds, including mated pairs of cardinals and their offspring.

Yesterday, I saw a butterfly I've never seen before.

Same coloration as a Me109 in North Africa.  Orange brown with irregular black spots.


Tentatively identified as a Comma.

Wretched polecat was back again early this morning...Fortunately, Von was still awake and managed to disturb it.

That meant catching, and then taking, the remaining chickens out of the 'pen' and putting them in the ark at 1:30.....(The ark's more secure...but there's not a lot of space in it....especially with all of the chickens in it.)

I now know what the weird shrieking noise was the other night. It was the sound a mega panicking chicken.....one of them did it to me while I was carrying her to the ark......Absolute racket !!

I can understand how a polecat could get in to the pen.......But how it got a chicken......then another one, out.............
Must have takin one heck of an effort to pull it through a gap between the gate and a wall.

Cheers - Tired of Wales.

Quote from: Techno II on 18 July 2021, 06:20:12 AM
. . . Tired of Wales.

Well, move elsewhere then.

Quote from: Raider4 on 18 July 2021, 06:42:50 AM
Well, move elsewhere then.

Nowhere would give Phil a Visa, due to irrational hatered of endangered carnivours