Wolves Wild

A common drone fly [Eristalis tenax] feeding on buddleia flowers. The insect is indeed one of the commoner hoverflies.

The buddleia flowering season is now coming to an end. While it lasted, rgw plant attracted what’s probably been the best showing of a range of butterfly species this year.

Red admirals have been among the more co-operative, spending some time feeding on the lower branches, nearer to my eye level. There’s two individuals in this set.

A long-bodied cellar spider [Pholcus phalangioides] scurrying about repairing its web. It was so busy, it showed no signs of being disturbed that I came close enough with a mobile to get these pictures.

A bee so tiny it kept almost disappearing behind the stamens of the St John’s wort flower it was collecting pollen from. Possibly a bronze furrow bee [Halictus tumulorum].

Another butterfly taking advantage of the flowers of a buddleia bush. This time it was a red admiral, undisturbed even though I was only a few feet away with a camera.

Around here, meadow brown butterflies normally stay in the environment implied in their name: meadows and areas of long grass with wildflowers. So do their somewhat more reclusive relatives, gatekeepers.

This year, both species have been visiting some suburban gardens, admittedly only a few hundred yards direct flying distance from places they hang out every year.

This meadow brown is feeding from the flowers on a buddleia bush in one such garden. It’s a very short clip before the insect decided my mobile was getting to close, so it retreated to a higher flower out of range of filming distance. There had been a gatekeeper around, but it had adopted the more cautious strategy from the start.