David

White bedstraw: it doesn’t take an expert to guess that it’s closely related to the lady’s bedstraw as featured in a post yesterday. Both were flowering at the same time earlier this month in the wetland / wildflower area around the Compton Park pond.

It seemed to me that the lady’s bedstraw was the more strongly perfumed, though that impression may have been because there was quite a bit more of it, and it was easier to get up close.

Scarlet tiger moth, at rest on one of the leaves high in a tall buddleia bush. Quite hard to see, but worth the effort, as it was showing the bright colours of its underwing, normally only glimpsed briefly as the insect flutters by while in flight.

Lady’s bedstraw. A patch of this gives of a strong sweet smell. Back in the days when straw matresses where the best that the many could hope to lie on, some of this might well be an attractive additiona ingredient.

A hornet mimic hoverfly (Volucella zonaria), one of several hoverfly species which escapes predation by looking like a more dangerous insect.

This one was spending some time near the edge of one of the petals on one of the barley Field brambles, possibly drinkig some of the drops of water which had been left by overnight rain.

Flag irises on Compton Park pond, at the end of the flowering season as the petals begin to shrivel and the annual cycle moves on to the development of this year’s seeds..

A magpie prospecting for invertebrates on the recently-cut grass of one of the paths on the barley Field. Its scruffy plumage and somewhat short tail perhaps indicate it is a young bird.