Hello everyone
I’m writing these notes on Wednesday, 9th September, as I’m off to Bulgaria on Friday, on a Naturetrek holiday! I’ll tell you all
about it in the next notes. It should be good, because we’ll be visiting the Black Sea coast, which is on the North/South migration route for the birds returning south, after the breeding season.
The other day, we had a jersey tiger moth on our rockery. We get one 
or two of these colourful moths every year. Their upper wings are chocolate brown, with white diagonal stripes. When they open their wings, the underwings are a lovely bright orange — a nice contrast to the brown and white.
Another welcome visitor to our garden one evening was a plump hedgehog. 
We saw him in the car’s headlights as we drove in. We don’t see many hedgehogs these days, but we know they are about, because we see their calling cards!
A third interesting find was a young slow worm, which I disturbed when moving a pile of logs. Very snake-like, it was flicking its tongue out at me. The mature slow worms 
are silvery grey, but this infant had several markings — it wasn’t an adder, was it?
There are a few more butterflies about now — I saw two red admirals this morning. As usual, they have waited until our buddleia bushes have finished blooming, so they’ll have to make do with the remaining flowers in the garden!
Alan
Ed’s note: The temperature in Bulgaria rose steadily following Alan’s arrival and peaked at 92deg F – much hotter than normal for this time of the year. Looking forward very much to Alan’s report next month.
