Saturday 28 July 2012

Hot, Hot, Hot!

I don't recall a summer with so many extremes of weather. After weeks of cold and wet weather, it was all change this week. Hot and humid with temperatures over 30C (86F) - once again not the usual UK summer weather.

The warmer weather has brought out the butterflies and moths, but still not as many as usual.

  Purple Emperor Butterfly

I managed to snap this Purple Emperor butterfly yesterday. It was a bit difficult to get a decent photo being quite high in a tree but I think it is interesting because you can see the purple sheen on its wing which give it its name. Only the male has this colouring.

A piece of good news about the roe deer twins - I have now seen them with their mother a couple of times. My fears that something had happened to her were happily unfounded.

Just before this hot spell, the hares were spending a lot of time in the garden. I took a series of photos one day when a couple of them were right outside our conservatory. It had been raining so their coat was a bit damp, but I rather like some of the poses.


Brown Hare



  Brown Hare



  Brown Hare



  Brown Hare

Finally, it seems to be the grasshopper season. There have been dozens them in and around the house. I keep picking them up on a piece of paper and depositing them outside, but they seem to leap straight back in again! There were 5 of them on our French windows one day last week.

The weather has now cooled down a bit to more "normal" summer temperatures. I hope the rain holds off at least for the duration of the Olympic Games.

3 comments:

Sandra said...

Hello Jenny, nice to see a posting from you on the blogger page on my own blog where I can see where people whose site I follow have posted new photographs. I like this feature.
I love seeing the purple sheen on the wings of that male butterfly.
The hare shots are really good and love all the different positions too!
It's been incredibly hot here too after a rather cool and mediocre summer. Now it's humid and heavy. I don't envy the Americans with their everlasting heatwave.
Have a lovely Sunday! Sandra

Giasone said...

The erratic changes from hot and humid to dry and sunny to cold and wet sounds like summer here in southern Victoria. It would be interesting to see how the humidity is affecting the English countryside. I imagine some things are thriving while others are suffering.

Jenny said...

Thank you for your comments, Sandra and Giasone. I am sure this weird weather is having an effect on most flora and fauna but especially the insect life. I guess this would have a knock-on effect with creatures that feed on the insects and also plants that are pollinated by them.