The caterpillars crawled in three by three

The other day I noticed some aphids on the nasturtiums, but I decided not to spray in the the hopes that either birds or ladybirds would get most of them. What I didn't spot were some caterpillar larvae. When I went to water them today (although thankfully we've had good rain since), they were crawling with caterpillars. They can only have hatched the other day, and quite a few seemed to be dead, but the living ones have done quite enough damage, thank-you. I think these will end up prematurely in the compost.

Wings

Butterflies and bugs - and one bird...



Flies for dinner, anyone?



Spotted this the morning I went out for sunrise photos. Had the wideangle lens on, so this is cropped out from a bigger photo.

We saw this beautiful swallowtail butterfly when we went to try to find some ruins of a Baroque mansion. After several attempts we did find them - but they were so overgrown by trees that they were next to impossible to see. Just as well there was some interesting wildlife so that C didn't feel the detour was a total wild goose chase. He hadn't been impressed by the photo in the guide book.


We saw this on a beach. I haven't been able to identify it yet, not helped by the fact that we only saw the underside of the wings really. They remind me of a Persian carpet...

Kerry visit

We were down with my Dad in Kerry for the weekend. Contrary to the weather forecast, it was pretty sunny most of the time. I saw a blue dragonfly flying over the garden, and then this one came to land. My husband came across a whole lot of drawings of damselflies in an ornithology magazine in the house and told me what this one was, but I don't recall. Wish the blue one had landed!
Since rally cars were passing the house all day on Sunday, it was not quite as peaceful as usual.