13 June 2017

We went to Apedale in the afternoon – and it was a warm cloudy afternoon, with a bit of sunshine now and again. We parked at the car park near the Energy Centre for a change, and walked up to the ‘Spinny Wheel’ (the mining monument at the top of the hill).

Unfortunately we forgot the camera battery so had to take the photos with a phone – so they’re not as good as usual!

We saw and heard lots of things we didn’t manage to photograph: speckled wood butterflies, a kestrel hovering and hunting, a skylark flying really close through the field next to us, we heard a cuckoo again and a white throat flew across the path ahead of us.

We did manage some pics though:

There were a few a few burnet moth chrysalises attached to the wire fence.

We saw one of the burnets that had already emerged from its chrysalis. This is a 5-spot burnet.

We were very pleased to spot, photograph and identify this butterfly, which is a female large skipper (ochlodes sylvanus):

We saw this really odd bug, with beautiful lacy wings, covered in black markings, and a strange upturned tail. Ali had a hunch that it might be a kind of lacewing, so a quick Google search later, we discovered that this is a scorpion fly (panorpa communis):

Here are some great facts about the scorpion fly from the Wildlife Trust website:

The scorpion fly is a strange looking insect which is found in gardens, hedgerows and woodland edges, particularly amongst nettles and Bramble. It has a long beak-like projection from its head that is uses to feed, scavenging on dead insects and frequently stealing the contents of spider’s webs. It lives up to its name by sporting a scorpion-like tail, which the male uses in courtship displays. Adults usually mate at night, but mating can be a dangerous game for the male, who might easily be killed by the female. So he presents her with a nuptial gift of a dead insect or a mass of saliva to placate her – the equivalent of a box of chocolates! The resulting eggs are laid in the soil and the emerging larvae live and pupate at the soil surface.

We spotted this bright green spider in the grass:

Sandy identified it, using one of our brilliant ID sheets from the Field Studies Council, as a green orb weaver spider.

We also spotted these orchids:

And, as a nice change, we spotted this orchid with spotted leaves:

Orchid identification is a bit complicated so we need to have a closer look at these, with a better camera before we can be sure which ones they are!

We saw Lucy, Jake and Amber, as usual – and we were very impressed by Amber’s fence leaping! We also met Camillo and his dachshund friend, and a lovely big black dog called Daniel. He was very sweet and liked a big fuss.