Tipton's Croft

A field in Shropshire, England

Category: Insects

  • Bees are happy today

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    And this is as close as I’m going to get to them in a T-shirt.

  • Bee time

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    Our wonderful bee keeper, Sue, has, with help from experts Paul and Rob, installed a strange new bee hive called a top bar hive. Despite its odd looks it didn’t take long to fill with bees who have got very busy harvesting the wildflower nectar in the field to make honey.

  • Emperor dragonfly.

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    A beautiful example of an emperor dragonfly. This female has just transformed from nymph to adult and, too weak to fly, hangs onto a rush and tries to not to be noticed.

  • Wriggly season

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    It’s the season for caterpillars of all sorts (though we could do without the Large Whites on our cabbages).

    Peacock butterfly caterpillars
    Vapourer moth caterpillar
    Large White (‘Cabbage White’) butterfly caterpillar
    Cinnabar moth caterpillar

  • It’s in the meadow and it’s brown

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    So it’s a Meadow Brown butterfly.

    Yes, we know, that is ragwort but it will be gone by the time we cut the field for hay.

  • Common and blue

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    So must be a Common Blue Damselfly, sitting on a new water lilly leaf.

    One day we’ll remember to go out with a decent camera to get better photos.

  • St Mark’s fly

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    Swarms of them in the field, usually appearing on the 25th of April (St Mark’s Day) but a day late this year because it’s a leap year?! Weird-looking things dangling their legs in the air, but they don’t bite and are good pollinators so we’re letting them do their thing.

  • Autumn wrigglies

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    A Yellow-Tail moth caterpillar, we think!

  • Bees

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    You can’t have a wildflower meadow without bees, so thanks to Sue and Glynn we have lots of them.