The buddleia bush is in full flower and has been attracting an ever increasing number of butterflies. On August 2nd, another Silver-washed Fritillary made an appearance, unfortunately it was too brief to allow identification to gender. The most obvious increase in numbers has been Peacock and Painted Lady, with Large White also appearing in impressive numbers. I suspect that the end of July and beginning of August saw the emergence of Painted Ladies resulting from the invasion in June. The peak counts, also on August 2nd, were 15 Painted Ladies and 20 Peacocks.
I saw my first Migrant Hawkers of the year on August 2nd, when 2 flew over the back garden and performed aerial circuits for a while. These rather small Hawkers are usually quite obvious because of their size and also their habit of flying in circuits at quite a height above the ground, say 20 feet.
Another Volucella inanis was observed feeding on bramble outside the kitchen window on August 3rd. I thought it was a male, but inspection of the attached photo appears to show a female.
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