The ditches of the Brede Valley were full of Frogbit in flower today, but the leaves and the leaves of the duckweed were covered in uncountable numbers of small green aphids. Does anyone know what species they might be?
Might be Waterlily Aphid, Rhopalosiphum nymphaeae .
The fruits of the Blackthorn are now ripening and these bright blue specimens were seen today in the Pannel Valley.
In my Rye Harbour garden today I noticed 2 good examples of galls on a small Sessile Oak. Both are produced by tiny gall-wasps.
The first was an “Artichoke” or “Hop Gall”, produced by Andricus fecundator.
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A walk along the seawall this morning turned up not much more than 2 Arctic Skuas > W and a Wheatear, but this afternoon there were quite a few warblers flitting about my garden and a brief sortie later produced Common & Lesser Whitethroat and both Spotted and Pied Flycatcher. Perhaps they had their eyes on the flying ants seething up the fence posts as thunder approached across the Channel.
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This superb Elephant Hawk-moth larva was found in Rye Harbour Village yesterday by three local kids (they had been to the recent Moth Morning at Lime Kiln so were keen to find out what it was). Elephant Hawk-moth larvae mimic snakes as a defence against preditors. As you can see from the picture when the larva withdraws its head the resemblance to a snake is striking, eyes,scales and all!
