Highlights of Recent #DailyExercise Walks

We continue to take our #DailyExercise walks through the local park and two cemeteries. Here are some highlights from recent walks.

The coltsfoot flowers are over now and have formed seed heads, which are beautiful. Here they are on a recent rainy day

and here they are yesterday in the sunshine, looking like they've been blown dry, which they have really!

This nest had fallen out of a tree in one of the cemeteries, I don't know what type of bird had built it, but hopefully whatever it was has time to build another nest and raise a family

We continue to find a wealth of insect life in the cemeteries particularly, including this magnificent green longhorn moth

and this pine ladybird, one of three we saw, but there must be more of them around

The small toirtoiseshell and peacock butterflies that were so prevalent a couple of weeks ago have mostly disappeared, but we're seeign good numbers of orange tips (which don't want to pose for the camera) and the occasional comma

(The metamorphosis of caterpillars into moths and butterflies is fascinating and Discover Wildlife recently posted an excellent short article on this process, which you can read here). 


Both graveyards host lots of hoverflies, such as this Helophilus hybridus 

We saw our first swift of the year yesterday (read yesterday's post for more about these wonderful birds). 

For Nature Notes.