Richmond Park

A warm day after a chilly start to the autumn. +22° С and sunny. Been to Richmond Park.

Very few things around, the only butterflies I saw were a Red Admiral (Vanessa atalanta) and a Small Heath (Coenonympha pamphilus) and the only insects I bothered to photo were these Galeruca tanaceti leaf beetles, which were running across grassy areas in numbers:

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Deer are starting their rut, with stags bellowing and defending their harems from the young desperate bachelors.
Hordes of Homo sapiens apes with cameras follow them, taking their pictures, making selfies, etc.

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Richmond Park

A cloudy, warm, very humid day, +25° C. Been to Richmond Park.

Synaphe punctalis pyralid moth, a smaller congener of S. antennalis I shot in Southern Russia.
Most commonly encountered on chalk downland, it is nevertheless not infrequent here in Richmond Park, on London clay:

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Crazy numbers of Gatekeepers (Pyronia tithonus) everywhere, nectaring mostly on Ragwort (Senecio jacobaea):

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Richmond Park

At last, after a cold spell, took a walk in Richmond Park.

Deer have baby fawns at the moment, which lie motionless among the brackens, so it is best not to wander into the thickets at all — or watch your step if you have to!
Another bracken-dweller is the Brown Silver-line moth (Petrophora chlorosata), which flies in crazy numbers in Richmond at the moment, but is very wary and hard to shoot:

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On sandy paths, early summer complex of bees and wasps makes and stocks their burrows.
Obviously, they have company =)
A Metopia sp. sarcophagid fly, a cleptoparasite of bees and wasps, paid several visits to the Cerceris wasp burrows:

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Richmond Park

Had a long walk through Richmond Park, from Kingston to Richmond gates, via Pen Ponds.

A very unusual brown female of Meadow Grasshopper (Pseudochorthippus parallelus):

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Near the smaller of the Pen Ponds, I found a strong population of the Small Red-eyed Damselfly (Erythromma viridulum). This species was first found in Britain in 1999, and has since spread widely across Southern and Central England and South Wales:

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