Late arrivals

A cycle around the dale brought my first Red Admirals of the year. Pterostichus cupreus (medium/large ground beetle bright green/metallic) is everywhere, in my dry traps mating and running along the road as we cycled.

The girls found Propylea 14-punctata (14-spot Ladybird) on me.

Redstarts were singing where there were none a fortnight ago - three different sites. And an extra Tree Pipit was singing at one of these sites. I always think of Redstart as quite an early arrival so it is interesting that they are continuing to arrive in breeding territory as late as mid/late May. The female Whinchats mentioned yesterday appear to have arrived over the last week, unless they were cunningly hiding of course. A Lapwing was making "I've got chicks" noises by one of the farms, but the chicks were most likely hiding in the Juncus as I couldn't see them.