The last few days have been hectic ones. Friday would have been  a great day for birdwatching as it was bright and sunny, but I was at home, in the office preparing for a talk I gave that evening. I had nearly 300 slides prepared and they all needed checking and titling etc.It took ages to arrange good transitions and a bit of care taken was taken with planning and presentation. I think the  talk was quite successful in the end.  My only fear, apart from being boring and uninspiring, was to run out of things to say. Well I needn’t have worried unduly because I had to think on my feet and cut a massive segment from the middle. If not, we would have still been there at midnight! I quite enjoyed the experience, I am used to talking but to be honest I have done more enjoyable things. It was nice to show some of my best images and it was almost a learning experience for me to have a good look at the great things we have had in the garden in the last 2 years or so. 

As I said Friday was a great day weather wise and I was amazed to see how much insect activity there still is in the garden. There was 3 different Hoverfly species including a Marmalade Fly and also 2 red Admiral Butterflies. They were all attracted to the flowering Ivy which is a massive source of nectar at this time of year.

As well as the butterflies here is a nice example of both a Drone Fly, Eristalis tenax, and Episyrphus balteatus.