Hopefully I haven't got too many more days stuck at home, a week is long enough. At least the garden is keeping me sane, and with the glorious sunshine this morning it was a real treat to watch a Hummingbird Hawk-moth feeding on the Valerian. Though I did learn something today, I'm pretty useless at taking photographs of them. At least the videos weren't too bad.
Here are my garden sightings from today, before the rain struck again.
One of my better efforts at capturing a Hummingbird Hawk-moth in flight.
At least I had a bit more luck with the video.
And its not often they feed on one flower head for any length of time.
...........The one thing I am sure of though, there were two of them.
It's still here the male Blue-tailed Damselfly and patiently waiting for a female to appear.
This is a Long Hoverfly (Sphaerophoria scripta)
The male can be told apart from the female by virtue of its body being longer than its wings. Like a few others I can name, this hoverfly has variable patterns of black and yellow.
Most of the invertebrates I came across this morning were around the pond again, including this Hairy Shieldbug (Dolycoris baccarum). Though this shieldbug was chancing its luck above the pond surface, little does it know that there are Palmate Newts lurking below.