The Orcadian weather continues to exhibit bi-polar qualities, or at least on some days it is very North Polar. Which just means one has to look harder for some wildlife. For instance, here's a micro moth on a potato leaf in the veg bed. I am reliably informed that this is A ncylis badiana (thanks, NC). At the weekend it was rather windy. Exhibit A is my neighbour's dressing gown. Exhibits B, C, D, E, F, G, H, I, J, K, L, M, N, O, P, Q, R, S, T, U, V and W are all the clothes pegs he used to keep it on the washing line. Another moth, of whose ID I can't be sure, possibly one of the numerous species of Arches. It was roosting on a door frame, where I didn't notice it until I opened the door and it fluttered on to a wall. It is a very characterful door, and proving to be quite the insect magnet, possibly due to a combination of being in a sheltered location, facing the sunrise, and handy for a nectar hit. This next moth is a Common Marbled Carpet. An early evening walk in
These opening paragraphs are going to have to ramble on for a while, as the first photograph is of a spider, and I wouldn't want to make you jump without at least giving you a bit of a warning. If it helps at all, it is a super close-up, taken with me kneeling on a boardwalk and reaching across and down to the water's surface, so that my fingers were only a few centimetres from the spider. Just in case we don't all know, I am not good with spiders, so if I can put on my brave pants to stare down an arachnid and take a photo , you can probably manage to view it from the safety of your device screen. Just ignore that tickly sensation which has suddenly begun behind one of your ears. Happily, the remaining nineteen photographs on this blogpost are a lot less scary, some are just plain cute, and the whole shebang encompasses the last four days of our Nethy Bridge holiday and a broad swathe of wildlife. But back to the first image, the beast in question is a Raft Spider, sat on