A few more photos from our recent camping trip. We pitched our tent on a clifftop, on the south of the Island, where we had spectacular views of the English Channel at the expense of feeling the full force of the high winds I mentioned in my previous post.
This Kestrel was a frequent visitor to the skies above our tent, its source of food being a ravine 20 feet in front of our pitch. Despite seeing it often, this was my best shot.
When we collapsed the tent at the end of the week, we found this
Dark Arches moth in the folds. It's quite a large moth, with a wing span of 46-54mm.
I found it quite handsome, and photographing it made a good excuse for me to hide in the tent while Rob wrestled the sleeping bags back into their cases.
This Lesser Stag Beetle walked across our path later in the day, fortunately nowhere near our tent, which was now packed away and in the back of the car. I'm not sure how well I would have handled finding this in my sleeping bag! In fact, I have a fair idea and it wouldn't have been pretty! At up to 32mm in length, it's a whopper of a beetle, and those mandibles are very intimidating!
Dragging out the last moments of our little holiday, we stopped in a lay-by for a picnic lunch. After chucking half the packing out of the boot of our car to find the not-so-cool-anymore cool bag and slapping some, by now, misshaped bread round some warm cheese, I took my camera for one last walk along the hedgerow and snapped this Wasp Beetle.
As the name suggests it is a (long-horned) beetle that looks like a wasp. These beetles also move and make buzz-like noises similar to wasps, but they are harmless.
