Christine's walking & birds blog

Thanks to the hot, still weather we are at last seeing an increase in the number and variety of insects in the garden - including this tiny Holly blue butterfly.

My brother-in-law Terry had mentioned seeing a drake mallard with a purple head, so when I saw one on a short walk today I took a couple of photos. My books state that the mallard has an iridescent bottle-green head - so the colour can change with the angle of view, lighting etc. These two drakes appeared distinctly different - one predominantly green, the other predominantly purple - but as they moved around I could see gleams of the "other" colour on each one.

On a more gruesome note this corpse was attracting the attention of a crow. It's possibly the remains of a cuckoo but I didn't want to get too close as it was crawling with bluebottles and other nice beasties.

A very-much-alive cuckoo was seen from above as it flew upstream, a hobby and a sparrowhawk were soaring, and a Cetti's warbler was singing yards away from a couple sunbathing.