Coiled

With our garden so baked and parched today that there was almost nothing moving in it, I ended up wandering back down to Tilly's field to see what might be happening there, and found that the Skippers were still skipping despite the heat. This photo, of the moment when a Small Skipper finished feeding and coiled its proboscis, is a shot I'm always pleased to capture when I can. I'd have liked it even more if the proboscis had been separated from the nearer antenna, but really, that's just being picky.

This evening I resorted to the garden sprinkler to try to save my flower borders from mass extinction - and in the process, I hope, to prolong the lives of some of the nectar-feeding invertebrates in the garden. While the sprinkler was doing its thing I went back along the lane, and snapped my first definite Essex Skipper of the year, feeding on a thistle. It was fresh, skittish, and uncooperative, so I'm not thrilled with the photo, but if you check out the extra you'll see that its antennae unquestionably meet the description of looking as though they've been dipped in ink. I also found my first Gatekeeper of the year this evening, moving the butterfly list to thirty one species.


For the record: ten candidates have now put themselves forward to become the next leader of the Conservative Party, and thus Prime Minister of our poor, benighted country. Frankly, there isn't one of the bunch - with the possible exception of Tom Tugendhat, who has no chance of winning on account of looking approximately sane - that I'd trust to run a stall at a summer fête, but I have to admit, reluctantly, that Liz Truss has played her hand well: by waiting until all the rest had published their pitches, and the nation had expleted a collective "WTAF???!!!", she's probably put herself in pole position. Plus, once you factor in Johnson's vicious determination to bring down the people he blames for his own downfall (Sunak; Zahawi) by releasing all the dirt he has on them, you'd be pretty foolish to bet against Truss as the next PM.

What a time to be alive.