Moorhens

It's been a miserable year for a lot of wildlife but the moorhens are having a good year - so far. A brood of six chicks has been born recently and at lease five or six juveniles seem to have made it through from earlier broods so there is quite a throng of them at the moment. As they are the most entertaining birds I know it is gratifying to see so many. All three generations were on the lawn today with five juveniles and most of the chicks plus an adult. The adult was showing them all how to steal potatoes from the vegetable patch so I went out and dug up the remaining ones and they had to content themselves with eating whatever it was I had uncovered. There has also been a new single duckling but it is keeping a fairly low profile. The picture shows one adult four juveniles and three chicks on the lawn.

Waxcaps on the lawn

Having left the lawn uncut for a couple of weeks during which a lot of rain fell I came back from holiday to find the lawn covered in waxcaps, one of the blackening species. From my fungi book I would have said it was Hygrocybe tristis or Hygrocybe conica var tristis as some sources have it

but the whole taxonomy of waxcaps seems a difficult area so I am not sure.

Butterflies

Is has been a terrible year for butterflies although there were unusually large numbers of Orange Tips earlier in the year (mostly before the rain started). Today it warmed up a bit despite it being damp and there were five species trying to make the most of a day when it wasn't too wet or windy. Pictured here is a Comma (one of several on the wing) and I also saw Meadow Browns, Ringlets, a Red Admiral and a Large? White.