Today's walk took us from the Mill, just east of Sturminster Newton along the River Stour, walking upstream.
We had originally intended to walk as far as the outskirts of the town, returning along the old railway line.
But in spite of the fact that we could hear a cuckoo calling from that direction, we never managed to leave the river as there was so much too see!
It was a cold morning and consequently we didn't really expect to see many insects, but right from the start we were amazed by the amount of life over the river.
Most obvious were the swarms of what looked like tiny black moths, but were probably caddis flies.
Occasionally catching and eating them were several red-eyed damselflies, only the second time I had ever seen this fairly local species.
The path we were walking along bordered a superb wild flower meadow, containing an enormous density of meadow buttercups and seven different species of grass.
In the river itself were patches of yellow water-lilies and some very impressive bul-rushes (actually a type of sedge).
Forming a swathe between the river and the field was a wide patch dominated by tall plants such as umbellifers.
In the wetter patches these were mostly hemlock water-dropworts with other areas containing hogweed and cow parsley.
All these plants are very important nectar sources for insects and today various flies were in abundance, particularly the colourful noon fly.
The stands of water dropwort at one bend in the river had a small colony of the amazingly beautiful banded demoiselle, frustratingly too quick for a photo even in this cold weather.
Returning to the picturesque waters of Fiddleford Mill we realised that the mill stream was full of fish.
Never easy to identify looking through the water surface we definitely saw the stripey flanks of a couple of small perch along with a number of larger specimens with very bright red fins, probably rudd, along with a few duller fish that might have been dace or perhaps chubb.
And not a butterfly seen all morning - in June!
Insects
Caddis Fly
Red-eyed Damselfly
Banded Demoiselle
Green Drake Mayfly?
Noon Fly
Scorpion Fly
Drone-fly
Marmalade Hoverfly
Bee Hoverfly
Dock Beetle
A Mayfly, probably the Green Drake (Ephemera danica)
© Bob Ford/Nature Portfolio
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© Jos Mannering
click on the image to go to its iSpot page
© Bob Ford/Nature Portfolio
© Bob Ford/Nature Portfolio
click on the image to go to its iSpot page
© Bob Ford/Nature Portfolio
click on the image to go to its iSpot page
© Bob Ford/Nature Portfolio
© Bob Ford/Nature Portfolio
