The current heatwave has turned up some surprises in the garden. Firstly, I saw an interesting-looking Dragonfly in the front garden. My initial thoughts as it flew past the living room window, that was it was going to be my first Common Darter for the garden year list. I moved to the window to relocate it and was surprised to see it was my first garden record of a Beautiful Demoiselle. It landed, I grabbed the camera, but I couldn't get the window opened enough for a photo. In hindsight, I should have taken a photograph through the glass, but I reckoned I could get a photo from the study window, as I can open that window further. Frustratingly it flew and disappeared from sight into my neighbour's garden and didn't reappear again. The nearest regular locations to my Swanage garden are around Corfe Castle or the Corfe River Valley: both about four miles away.
The next afternoon, I popped into the back garden to see what Butterflies were on my Buddleia bush. There were the usual species with a couple of Peacocks, a Red Admiral, a Large White, a Meadow Brown and a Gatekeeper, while a Holly Blue was flying along the Ivy hedge. Then I noticed a Butterfly completely hunched up on the gravel. I couldn't figure it out, so grabbed so photos. It turned into my first Grayling for the garden. Like the previous day's Beautiful Demoiselle, it had travelled about four miles away, as the nearest regular locations to my Swanage garden are around Corfe Castle, the Corfe River Valley or Studland's heaths. Just after this, I added another very erratic garden visitor: a Small Copper on the Buddleia. This is only the fifth year that I've seen a garden Small Copper.
It had been a couple of great days for the garden and only a week or so before my thirtieth anniversary of living in my cottage.