Migrant hawkers, males at least, are more brightly coloured and visibly smaller than brown hawkers. At least three were in the same area as the larger species (yesterday’s post), but in the various challenges for possession, they were the ones sometimes making interspecies aggression.
Fruit on one of the spindle trees by the Railway Walk at Newbridge, now appearing to be almost ripe.
One of the West Park squirrels, not, for once, begging to be fed. It seemed to be stalking something I couldn’t see, then raised itself on its hind legs for a better view.
A spot on the River Avon, just downstream of Stratford, seemed particluarly attractive to dragonflies last month. There were at least five, probably all males, of two different species, contesting for territory on the same patch. The larger (the largest common dragonfly around these parts) were a couple of brown hawkers.
They seemed never to pause from their rapid flight with sudden unpredicatable changes of direction. These were the best of the pictures I managed to get.
Butterfly numbers are falling, but there seem to have been a lot of red admirals about this autumn. This set includes individuals attracted to a late-flowering buddleia bush in a front garden, and a rather battered looking butterfly on flowers on some type of exotic bush in West Park.
The first storm of the autumn brought down lots of tree branches, though there seemed to be few in the parts of West Park I visited early the next morning. This was the view looking across the boating lake towards the direction the sun was due to rise some minutes later.