David

Brandy bottle (yellow) water lilies in the River Windrush at Burford, the ones the grass snake (yesterday’s post) slithered across. Some in flower, others already moving to set seed.

A few August days in Oxfordshire, and an opportunity for different wildlife. The most spectacular, on our first evening.

The River Windrush, crossed by a narrow bridge at the lower end of Burford. A grass snake swimming across the river. The pictures start as the snake climbed on to the lily pads at the middle of the mill leat which separated from the main river at this point, After crossing the lilies, it started swimming over the rest of the placid open water, heading towards the low weir which returned water to the main river.

As it reached the weir, its body was aligned in parallel, and remained so as it was carried over and disappeared.

A tiny, tiny wasp, a mere fraction of the size of the late summer, picnic-interrupting wasp types. Identified, by the pattern-recognition software of iNaturalist, as an Exallonyx species.

Elderberries, hanging heavy as they ripened.

A hornet mimic hver fly feeding on a thistle flower, and standing where I got a less than clear view wherever I moved

The fruit ripening on a flowering current, a gardening shrub. These were on a shrub in a front garden.