Friday, July 10, 2026
It's grey and drizzly here today, with definitely no hint of a heatwave. Popping out to pick up Greger's medicine, I had a short walk round the camp-site and along West Shore Street (where the coastal rowing regatta is getting underway) and then drove to West Terrace - from where I saw some common dolphins, quite far out towards the Summer Isles.
This is probably a square-headed wasp, possibly Ectemnius cephalotes - which I recorded in the Taplow Garden in July 2011.
Busy nectaring in the stonecrop among bumblebees and honey bees, was what I've identified as a Willughby's leaf-cutter bee (Megachile willughbiella). Its white underparts quickly became yellow with pollen.
This hoverfly was on the back wall. It's a bumblebee mimic, known sometimes as the bumblebee plume-horn (Volucella bombylans).
A tiny white moth fluttering about on the lawn landed - and looked like just a little brown mark at the top of the blade of grass, making it difficult to focus the camera on it. It's probably a garden grass-veneer moth (Chrysoteuchia culmella).
Add to this a 7-spot ladybird (first ever in the garden), a painted lady that sailed through and vanished, and a dragonfly briefly darting around the top of the willow tree - and I found enough over the two days to keep me busy. A pair of herons flying over were the only birds of note.
// posted by Christine @ 9:16 AM 
