The speckled wood butterflies were very active today with a male chasing the female all over the place but never quite catching her. They rested on pale coloured perches or shining leaves and one visited the western dandelion. There was also a fine fresh red admiral that stopped briefly on its way through. Difficult to believe it had emerged from hibernation or flown in from mainland Europe. It looked as though it was freshly emerged from the pupa which would indicate the species is breeding here (as the climate gets warmer?)
Nomad bees are now fling about close to the ground. I think the species we have here is ruficornis, but I don'r want to catch one to find out.
Some of the looping wild onion leaves have changed from curves to inverted Vs rather like the coronavirus graphs that are constantly being shown on TV.
Some of the leaves on hogweed and sycamore seedlings are overshadowing smaller plants today, so I have started a system of control by selective hand grazing.
