High life

Today's reason to be cheerful has to be this news story I've just spotted on the BBC site. It turns out that the least likely explanation of the vanishing lady mystery turns out to be the correct one.

Painted lady (Photo: Alvesgaspar)

Painted lady butterflies come to Britain each summer from North Africa, sometimes in large numbers.
They bring a bit of colour to the summer and then, when come autumn comes, disappear. The two theories about what happens to them all are that they either head back to North Africa or that they simply die when the first frost arrives.
And the idea that something as fragile as a butterfly could do that journey twice does seem implausible. But now it turns out that they do, but they fly so high up that we can't see them from the ground. 
Butterflies at 1,000 metres up - I love it.

Running late

We had a really wild, stormy night here last night, but today the clouds have gone and the sky is blue. I've happily wasted the lion's share of the day in the garden and have been amazed to swallows.
Five of them in the sun across the other side of the valley. The little group were feeding over river, presumably taking an opportunity to feed up. Swallows this late in the year is odd. Are they a late brood from here in Wales, or birds from further north feeding up on the way through?

Tickled pink

I've seen and heard lots of jays in the valley over the last week or so - and yesterday, spotted one in the garden. It made my day; perhaps that should be I was chuffed. Or is it choughed?
At this time of year we often hear them, but I've not seen one in the garden before. But now it sounds like we're in the middle of a jay invasion, or at the BBC Radio 4's Saving Species reckons we are.

Jay
Photo: Luc Viatour/www.Lucnix.be

It was picking up on the fact that the BTO has seen a marked upturn in the reporting rate for jays this year. Birders are seeing more of them and, in some cases, they're seeing them in flocks of more than 20.
Why? It could be that jays are on the move within the UK because of problems with food availability. The acorn crop here is middling, but maybe it's been a bad year elsewhere.
Or maybe jays from the Continent are coming here this year and that it's in mainland Europe that they are going hungry. I suppose we'll find out in time.