Cardinal Beetle

Finally, a warm day with sunshine, so welcome after a truly abysmal month so far.  I was booked in for one last session with the Leeds students at 4 p.m., but the weather was too good to stay at home, so Pete and I visited a local site for a few hours of survey work.

It was rather overcast when we arrived, but the sun soon broke through and suddenly the world was full of insects including several Cardinal Beetles and quite a few Reed Beetles that had emerged from the adjacent watercourses and were sunning themselves on Hawthorn and Cow Parsley Blossom. 

The adjacent SSSI hay meadow was a sheet of buttercups, and everywhere looked just perfect!