It was time for #30DaysWild to meet politics this evening thanks to the minor matter of a general election. In what seems to be an increasingly regular occurrence we once more made the short walk to our local chapel to cast votes in the most marginal seat in the country. Which way will it all go this time? Who knows but I’ve got the snacks ready and shall be settling down for an all-nighter so please, make it at least a little bit interesting won’t you?

But I digress. The real reason for this post was to cover our eighth wild day in June which consisted of a wander around our village, first to the aforementioned polling station then down the river in search of Dippers. Having had so much rain in the last twenty four hours or so water levels were very high and perhaps unsurprisingly we didn’t see a single one. Quite where they go when conditions are like this I have yet to figure out. Further upstream perhaps where the current is less strong or maybe out nearer the estuary where the wider and shallower water may make it easier to hunt. 

Our trip was not in vain however as an initially uninspiring patch of nettles revealed, upon closer inspection, our first ladybirds of the month. As the subject for one of our citizen science apps we’d been hoping to see lots of these about but for some reason had drawn a complete blank. Until now that is.

P1080505 - 7-Spot Ladybird
P1080506 - 7-Spot Ladybird

There were at least six 7-Spot Ladybird’s present, most seemingly hanging on for dear life in the strong winds that were battering their host plants. This species is probably the one that most of us are familiar with being almost ubiquitous across our parks and gardens. Now that we’ve got our eye in fingers are well and truly crossed that we can turn up a few different species before the month is out.


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