{"id":489,"date":"2009-08-23T16:44:03","date_gmt":"2009-08-23T16:44:03","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.engrailed.co.uk\/?p=489"},"modified":"2010-01-06T15:28:55","modified_gmt":"2010-01-06T15:28:55","slug":"red-admiral","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.engrailed.co.uk\/?p=489","title":{"rendered":"The Dark Side"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"Red<\/p>\n

Red Admiral Vanessa atalanta<\/em><\/p>\n

Butterflies and moths seem to be attracted to the fence outside my kitchen window, perhaps because it faces south. I noticed a Red Admiral in this same spot a couple of days ago, beautifully bright and fresh-looking, but obviously about to move on. Today’s appeared more settled and had its wings spread wide so I thought I’d take the camera round and try to get a picture. By the time I got to it it had folded up tight but it didn’t seem to mind being scrutinised and stayed long enough for me to have a good look. When you get close to butterflies they are quite unlike the children’s picture book impression that I grew up with – this one was furry and had a face like a tiny bat.<\/p>\n

A list of some of the wildlife seen in and around the gardens during the past few weeks includes:<\/p>\n

Peregrine, sparrowhawk and buzzard<\/p>\n

Swifts, swallows and house martins<\/p>\n

Pipistrelle bats<\/p>\n

Hummingbird Hawk Moth<\/p>\n

Peacock, Comma, Painted Lady, Red Admiral, Small Tortoiseshell<\/p>\n

Gatekeeper, Wall Brown, Speckled Wood, Clouded Yellow, Yellow Underwing<\/p>\n

Soldier Beetle, Honey Bee, Ladybird, Sawfly larvae<\/p>\n

Grasshopper, Speckled Bush Cricket<\/p>\n

The swifts have gone now – they left just after the beginning of August. I always mean to catch the last day but every year there’s a lapse before I finally register their absence.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Red Admiral Vanessa atalanta Butterflies and moths seem to be attracted to the fence outside my kitchen window, perhaps because it faces south. I noticed a Red Admiral in this same spot a couple of days ago, beautifully bright and fresh-looking, but obviously about to move on. Today’s appeared more settled and had its wings […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[82,41,40,23,83],"class_list":["post-489","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized","tag-butterflies","tag-dawlish","tag-devon","tag-garden","tag-red-admiral"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.engrailed.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/489","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.engrailed.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.engrailed.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.engrailed.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.engrailed.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=489"}],"version-history":[{"count":9,"href":"http:\/\/www.engrailed.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/489\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":945,"href":"http:\/\/www.engrailed.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/489\/revisions\/945"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.engrailed.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=489"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.engrailed.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=489"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.engrailed.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=489"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}