Over the summer, I’ve been taking my camera on walks, snapping some of the things I see, and posting them on twitter.
I’ve discovered that the more I look, the more I see, so I thought I’d add some nature notes to my blog.
Appleton Wiske lies in an ‘ordinary’ part of Yorkshire: we’re not a National Park, an AONB – we don’t even have any fancy nature reserves or SSSIs nearby. Nevertheless, there’s plenty of nature and wildlife to be seen, both in the village and in the surrounding fields.
Today is a nice sunny day and I
ate my lunch in the garden. Then I spent a few minutes to snap a few things I saw: here are some of the pictures.
insects love these mint flowers, expecially bees
I’ve got a bit of spearmint in a flower pot, and insects love the flowers. Many are bees, but other insects love it too.
This insect had a large shiny red abdomen, with black hairs on it. It loved the mint fllowers
Bees are supposed to be suffering lately, but I’ve seen lots in the garden this year. This big bumblebee was enjoying the late summer flowers on the Lavatera bush.
Big bumble bee on lavatera flower
We get lots of birds and bats in the garden, and I’m sure that all that wildlife feeds on all the insects. I looked around and saw plenty of other insects, such as these flies:
Small fly resting on Japanese anenome bud
tiny white flies on the back of a golden hop leaf
I noticed lots of holes in a geranium plant by the patio, so I had a look at the undersides of the leaves, and found a small grey caterpillar. I put it back after I’d photographed it.
Caterpillar on leaves by the patio
I’m not sure what species my caterpillar is, but I know that without caterpillars, we don’t get butterflies. There have been lots of these large white butterflies in the garden this year.
Large white butterfly on Lavatera flower