Do-Re-Mi

Don’t worry, I shan’t be bursting into any Rodgers and Hammerstein numbers.

Last Friday, (I’m only a week behind – Callooh! Callay!) whilst TBH took the kids swimming, I headed back to Gaitbarrow. On my previous visit, I’d read signs asking visitors to keep-off certain sensitive areas important for breeding pearl bordered fritillaries and duke of burgundy butterflies. So, I thought – since I’ve never knowingly seen either species, this is my chance. But, like the otters, bitterns, bearded tits and ospreys at Leighton Moss, which never seem to appear when I visit, the butterflies once again eluded me. Not to worry: there’s always plenty to see at Gaitbarrow.

 

The lady’s-slipper orchids, for instance, are now blooming.

Well, not all of them….

 

…but plenty to keep me and my camera occupied for a while.

 

Where ever I came across an open glade, I paused hopefully, waiting for masses of butterflies to appear. Nothing. But I did spot this moth…

 

I think that it’s a brown silver-line, but I’m not completely confident.

Nearby, I spotted an incongruous burst of colour amongst a patch of moss…

 

…I suspect that this is another slime mould, although, once again, I may be wrong.

Like the carnage of broken garden snail shells the boys and I found a while ago by Haweswater, this seems to be another anvil where numerous snail shells have been smashed, but this time the smaller banded snail…

 

…bits of shell were scattered over quite a wide area.

 

When I emerged from the wooded area into open fields, I did begin to see butterflies: peacocks, brimstones and whites, possibly female orange-tips.

Down by Haweswater the bird’s-eye primroses were flowering..

 

…and I finally managed to catch-up with one of those butterflies…

 

In the field at the end of the lake, I spotted a roe deer doe…

 

It was here that last year I saw a doe with a fawn. This doe may have a fawn secreted about the field somewhere – B tells me that he saw two roe deer fawns this week curled up together in a garden in the village. I often see roe deer on my evening wanders: like me they are crepuscular creatures.

 

As I got close to being back at the car, it seemed that almost every prominent tree had a song thrush busking from its topmost branches.

Several times on the walk I’d thought I’d heard the high-pitched begging of nestlings, but couldn’t find any nests. This time however, after some patient searching, I spotted a marsh tit poised on a branch with a sizeable insect in it’s beak. I backed off and waited and, sure enough, the bird dropped to a hollow in the trunk of a low tree,.

It was quite dingy under the tree here, and sadly none of my photographs were very sharp.

But in this last one, you can make out two yawning beaks facing the exhausted parent.

 

When I approached the tree for a closer look, the chicks greeted me at first as if I were bringing them food, but then hunkered down low into the hollow making themselves as inconspicuous as possible.

Whilst I watched the adult bird(s) going to and from the nest, this creature flew into my face and then fell to the floor. It’s a longhorn beetle, Rhagium bisfasciatum. Apparently longhorn beetles often fly at around dusk – another crepuscular creature.

 

Blackbird