Christine's walking & birds blog

Monday, August 10, 2026

A pleasant walk down sun-bleached fields and then along the banks of the River Lim took us from our holiday home on Dragon's Hill into the heart of Lyme Regis - although I was often distracted by various sightings on the way.

As well as the old favourite hummingbird hawkmoth, the walk gave me two new insects: a Jersey tiger hawkmoth (Euplagia quadripunctaria) and a figwort sawfly (Tenthredo scrophulariae).

A third new insect for me along the river was beautiful demoiselle - although I would get slightly better pics of these later, when we visited Athelhampton House, near Dorchester.

We don't often visit stately homes, but Greger was interested in this one because the owner has worked hard on making it carbon neutral. However, the interior of the house is certainly worth seeing, with parts of it dating from the 15th century. Some stained-glass windows caught my eye as they featured choughs (in another, but rather duller window, a single bird has a more lifelike bill in it being longer and more slender).

We then wandered round the attractive gardens and found the damselflies on the stream that runs along the northern edge of the grounds - which I think is the River Piddle.

Back at the house we chose the small cream tea rather than the large one (just one scone) and they were, unusually in our experience, fairly generous with the cream and jam; I didn't want to waste any so I loaded my scone with so much of both that it kept crumbling away from the weight, and I ended up in a right mess with sticky fingers, face, and even hair. You can't take me anywhere. After the tea, we drove to Maiden Castle Iron Age hill fort, and during a very windy walk on the chalk ramparts, spotted two clouded yellow butterflies (Colias croceus) sparring in mid-air. They eventually landed for a few seconds on the path, but I failed to get them with their wings open. Another insect first!

It was nice to see corn buntings near the car park, and a brown hare out on the parched fields among the corvids.

From Lyme, the Isle of Portland can be seen on the horizon (well, provided it's not swathed in one of its famous mists!) and a visit there was a must.

It was probably one of the warmest days of the week, so we didn't didn't set off on one of our long walks; we just ambled past the beach huts and horse paddocks to the first quarry, and then returned to the Bill. Despite the lovely sunshine and a few free seats outside the Lobster Pot, we went indoors to eat very nice fish and chips. We laughed at this, because last time we were here, we decided to sit outside - and halfway through our lunch it started to rain.

An ancient red telephone box looks as though it could do with some TLC!

We called in at Ferry Bridge on the way home and spotted dunlin, sanderling, Med gulls, and a solitary swift.

Golden Cap is the highest point along the cliffs between Lyme and Weymouth - and Greger wanted to revisit it for old times' sake. Many years ago, during our running days, we were camping at its foot; and one morning we donned trainers and ran up to the top. This time, he suggested a more gentle approach, and we drove round to Langdon Woods and walked under a canopy of mostly beech and pine, across open fields with hedgerows (a family of common whitethroats and a single yellowhammer seen here), and then to heathland sloping more steeply up to the trig point.

The gardens at our holiday let produced willow warbler, magpie, wren, buzzard, and this juvenile green woodpecker - a species I haven't seen since we moved to the Highlands twelve years ago.

A female tawny owl was once heard calling, and on another night we saw a badger run across the lawn. A dried-up pond in the centre of the lawn was surrounded by a tangle of vegetation, which included purple loosestrife and water mint - both new plants for me. I'm running out of steam, so I won't bother with the scientific names.

By the end of the week when we packed up and left, it was decidedly cooler - and I was mortified to see that hotter weather was due a couple of days later. Once again, we managed to miss the high temperatures - we got sandwiched between two heatwaves, with temperatures that were pleasant, but no more than you'd expect during an ordinary English summer. However, I noticed that Greger really suffered even from this heat, so it's really just as well that we were going home.

// posted by Christine @ 4:58 AM 0 comments

Wednesday, July 29, 2026

A dark green fritillary was flying around the garden this morning, finally settling for a while on the back wall.

The garden has done quite well this summer for butterflies; I've also seen orange-tipped, speckled wood, large white, peacock, red admiral, painted lady, and (later than usual) a single small tortoiseshell. Yesterday, two adult white-tailed eagles again soared high over the village before moving off to the north - probably the pair that has bred successfully in the area this year. In one of the photos I took two days ago I noticed that one at least of them has been ringed.

// posted by Christine @ 9:50 AM 0 comments

Monday, July 27, 2026

In the midst of domestic tasks, I noticed the sun had come out so I ventured into the garden for a break - just in time to see a white-tailed eagle flying towards me from the east, escorted by a corvid. A few seconds later, this second eagle followed the first.

There were very few insects in the garden after the rain, so here are a few more notable ones spotted previously throughout July. It took me a long time to pin down this species, but I'm confident now it's a barred yellow macro moth.

This little creature is a Calocoris roseomaculatus - one of the mirid bugs - settled on an ox-eye daisy.

I saw this insect only fleetingly, grabbed a shot and didn't bother to look for it again, thinking it was yet another unidentifiable hoverfly. But viewing the photo, I was intrigued by the green underparts and finally decided it was a kind of sawfly - possibly Tenthredo mesomela. Once again, the excellent assyntwildlife website comes up trumps with an image of a similar if not identical sawfly, labelled Tenthredo sp. - so I know I'm in the right area with the genus.

A large, plump, black fly seen first from behind on the spiraea was, I suspected, a giant tachinid fly; fortunately it flew to another flowerhead and showed its face.

I've seen these flies in several places while out walking, but this was a first for the garden. Also recorded here in July: painted lady, dark green fritillary, green lacewing, tapered drone fly, and hawthorn shield bug. Meanwhile, my research into the mystery plant seen on my small-hill walk draws me into deeper and deeper waters. For instance, hawkweeds are a nightmare! I've stumbled across a contemporary Facebook page devoted entirely to this genus, likewise an archived (from 1970) article titled "Notes on the Hawkweeds of western Scotland". Blimey. There are loads of them! I got excited when I saw one section on "West Ross" (presumably the part of Scotland now known as Wester Ross) - but alas, my insignificant little hill wasn't mentioned. They do however list a hill in the Coigach area, on which was found "a formidable assembly" of no fewer than 24 species of hawkweed! And I'm not even sure that my plant was a hawkweed, as it wasn't in flower at the time. I think I can rule out willow herbs - though only to replace them with forgetmenots. Suffice it to say I would be content to id this plant to genus level - I think it's all I can realistically hope for.

// posted by Christine @ 10:56 AM 0 comments

Monday, July 20, 2026

Yesterday: I couldn't wait any longer to try my first hill-walk of the year, so I went to bed early the night before - and managed to miss the exciting match between England and France! I also missed Greger's cooked breakfast the following morning as I wanted to make an early start.

Almost there.....

.....and because I knew I wasn't going on from this top, I spent some time studying the flora and fauna. Not much of the second - just a queen bumblebee (probably white-tailed) nectaring on heather.....

.....and a beetle clearly not desirous of my company....

.....which was fine by me, given that it was the same size as the bumblebee. There was Arctic bearberry (I think) everywhere, its berries a dark red; they'll be ripe when they turn black.

There was also quite a colony of lovely lilac orchids, which I think are either common spotted orchid or heath spotted-orchid. They and the strongly coloured bell heather were beautifully complemented by the rock.

Even at a distance, this small patch of grass stood out against the greenery; its stems and seed-heads were golden in the bright sunshine, but buffeted constantly by the wind (excuse for less-than-sharp pic).

This rosette of leaves is a bit of an ID mystery to me; I've narrowed it down to a species of fleabane or hawkweed - possibly. The "alpine" form of either would be a good find, and I'll keep on researching it.

On the descent of the steep, often wet slopes, I thought at one point that my left walking pole suddenly felt light; I looked down and realised half of it was missing. Oops - there it is, stuck in the ground behind me.

I made my way down with one-and-a-half poles; but Greger has since mended it for me, hooray! Meanwhile - this is probably a meadow grasshopper.

Birds were scarce today, with only meadow pipits on the hill itself. Other birds: a family of stonechats, a common gull flying along the loch, house martins wheeling and swooping over the dam, and several redpolls.

My stiff legs and aching lower back this morning reminded me that I'm not very fit at the moment - so I'm glad I did the walk, both because it was great to be up there again and because it was good training for our anticipated ascent of the usual Corbett once Greger is completely over his cold.

// posted by Christine @ 2:04 PM 0 comments

Tuesday, July 14, 2026

There were a good number of water lobelia in the roadside pool, but a cool wind raking the high moors set them all dancing, making a sharp picture difficult.

It has to be said though that we are at last having a bit of a heatwave - though nothing like the temperatures seen recently in England. More in the 22-25ºC range for us. We know our place.

A blue-tailed damselfly was again present - presumably a male.

The edges of the pool are rough, with a high tangle of grass and heather to fight through; and everything I wanted to photograph seemed to be in the middle! One thing that was at the edge was something that was new to me - a backswimmer. My ancient Observer's Book of Pond Life calls it simply a water boatman, while the lesser water boatman is the one that swims the right way up.

At the far end of the pool was a second blue-tailed damselfly.

But now confusion creeps in - because from all I've read on this species, the above individual should be an immature male. However, this one flew a short way and then proceeded to lay eggs. More research needed.

There were lots of whirligig beetles on the surface of the water; and after quite a search I identified the creature below as a species of the Gerridae family (pond skaters, water striders, etc.) in its larval form.

Meanwhile, a couple of days ago, yet another wasp - head encrusted with pollen- was nectaring on the popular nettle-leaved bellflowers. This seems to be a potter or mason wasp, but they are a headache to identify so again, I'll read up on it later.

A dark giant horsefly landed on my car for a wash and brush-up, the touching eyes showing it was a male.

A few seconds later a female landed on the ground.

I read somewhere that this particular horsefly is no threat to humans, but further reading informed me that the female will bite people if she feels like it - and she seems to have pretty forbidding mouthparts, so I'll keep my distance in future.

At last - during another mini-safari in the garden - a bird! Okay, "only" a re-introduced white-tailed eagle, but I'd defy anyone to look up at the fuss the gulls were making, spot this in the sky, and not be impressed.

The eagle headed north, flying right over the bungalow - and right over where poor Greger was suffering and has been for a week, from a really horrible cold. So far, I haven't caught it. Fingers crossed.

// posted by Christine @ 1:58 PM 0 comments

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.

The last two days however, have been warm and (mostly) sunny, so "mustn't grumble"! I went on a mini safari and collected six new species of insect for the garden. This striking wasp landed on the nettle-leaved bellflower in front of me; it's almost certainly an Ichneumon species, perhaps Ichneumon suspiciosus.

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). I usually see these in the Coigach area.

A tiny pale 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 0 comments

Tuesday, June 30, 2026

A few bits and pieces to see June out.....a visit to the pool near Achnahaird brought more water lobelia plants than last year, with some flowers out and more to come.

Last year there were fewer flowers but I was pleased to see emerald damselflies mating; this time, I caught a blue-tailed damselfly by chance and didn't know until I looked at the pictures back home. I saw my first blue-tailed at Rosehall in July 2020 - just after our rather severe lockdown ended.

A walk up the quarry road brought a new wildflower for me - sea plantain (Plantago maritima).....

......while back down near the car park, a beautifully dark, velvety butterfly sparring with a common blue seemed to be a ringlet - which would be a first for me in Ullapool. Not sure though - could be a chimney sweeper moth (one was recorded in Assynt the following day).

Back home on the same day, I was inspecting the spiraea and bell-flowers in the garden for bees when something large flew up and zoomed off - a hummingbird hawkmoth! It shot off over the wall and was never seen again. As for the herring gulls whose nest we can see from the back window - I eventually spotted a chick there, but what happened to it I don't know. A week or so later (much too soon for that chick to have fledged) I was in the garden when I heard the familiar angry rat-a-tat call, and a gull swooped at me - but no chicks could be seen on our or neighbouring roofs. Then one of the gulls appeared to be sitting on the nest again for a while. Not sure what's going on - I think the chick I saw must be dead.

// posted by Christine @ 1:33 PM 0 comments