Despite the large volume of rain that we have had this month, there were several days of quite pleasant sunshine which at least allowed me to grab a few pictures.

First is this photo of a great tit feeding its young family.

This photograph was take as it returned to its nest with a beak full of tasty grubs for its young.

Each parent bird must have been averaging 40 trips back and forth to the nest every hour, based on the number of flights they made in 15 minutes that I watched them.

Down on the River Dane these young mallards were now mature enough to fend for themselves, and promptly disappeared when I arrived.

Staying by the river these two photographs compare views of a small island in the river seven months apart.

 

 

 

 

The left hand photograph was taken back at the end of November 2006. The right hand one was taken on the 5th of June 2007.

The plant in the left hand photograph is known as Horseshoe vetch.

It is a member of the pea family and a food plant for the caterpillars of the common blue butterfly.

The photograph on the right is of a common blue, which apparently cannot tell its vetch from its dandy lions.

On a nearby nettle this Speckled Wood butterfly was a little way from its normal woodland environment, it did however make for a nice photograph.

Also nearby was this Large Skipper. This is a grassland butterfly and at first glance can be mistaken for a moth.

As well as butterflys there was also this Blue Tailed Damsel fly.

Related to dragon flies they are much smaller but more colourful.

There are about 1,000 species of damsel fly know at present.

Finaly on the way back up the cattle drive I spotted this fine example of a Foxglove.

The Foxglove is biennial, and is often grown in gardens as an ornamental plant.

Although very poisonous, it also has great medicinal use in treating patients with certain types of heart problem. It works by increasing the contractility of the heart muscle, and also by reducing heart rate.

Well thats it for now, all this talk of the heart and drugs is sounding too much like work :-)

See you next month, Andy.

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