Christine's walking & birds blog

It flew past me as I approached the usual spot and careered on across the moorland, so I walked on to have my lunch by the river. Glancing down the stream gully as I passed, I was surprised to see a kid standing under the overhanging bank. I was tempted to say fawn but apparently kid is the right term for roe deer young - if that's what it is. I took a hasty shot and continued down to the river.

Having dined sumptuously on a packet of crisps and a bottle of tap water, I made my way back up to the edge of the woods with its primrose patch and immediately spotted the hawk-moth nectaring - at the speed of light, of course. It had soon plundered all the flowers at the roadside and I followed it in under the trees - until sudden sound and movement to my right resolved into the little deer, which had evidently made its way up from the gully and was standing looking at me.  I turned away and took a wide diversion to regain the road, and was relieved to find no-one on it. Phew! Obviously, you shouldn't disturb a resting calf/kid/fawn for its own sake - but also, imagine how it would look to a passer-by: a baby animal running out of the trees, and me in there with a camera. However, the kid had stayed where it was and I started off back down the road, accepting that the hawk-moth photo session was over. 

Further down, I found the quarry gate open, so I walked a little way in and scanned the rocky bank, yellow now with birdsfoot trefoil (some spell the name with an apostrophe, some without - I think it looks neater without), hoping for butterflies, or dragonflies, or at least a lizard.

No butterflies, no dragonflies, although I did glimpse one lizard. But what I did find was another narrow-bordered bee hawk-moth! In fact there were two, their movements across the bank and while nectaring, swift and wary. A nearby common carder bee seemed pedestrian in comparison.