Seeing the Changes 240

On Saturday 17th in Loughor, we had our first ground frost of the year. Sadly, another area that was formerly the haunt of Common blue, Ringlet and Meadow brown butterflies has been trashed for building (it seems that every little bit of semi-wild space gets squeezed). A Green shield bug (Palomena prasina) got another feed in before the winter. At the National Wetlands Centre Wales (Penclacwydd), in addition to flowers already noted, Ox-eye daisy (Leucanthemum vulgare) and Self-heal (Prunella vulgaris) still hung on. The place was still alive with Common darter (Sympetrum striolatum) and Migrant hawker (Aeshna mixta) dragonflies. Butterflies were represented by Red admiral (Vanessa atalanta); Peacock (Inachis io) and Speckled wood (Pararge aegeria). One could see the tracks of the ducks in the weed floating on the water surface and a lone hen Pheasant (Phasianus colchicus) was having a quiet nosh.