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This is Ashes quarry, a former limestone quarry near Stanhope in Weardale that is now a wonderful nature reserve. The quarry floor is partially flooded and is a breeding place for dragonflies and damselflies, but this sheltered western end, which is mostly rough grassland and quarry spoil heaps, is always a good spot to look for butterflies.
It was good to see a small colony of wall browns has become established here. This is a butterfly that needs warmth and shelter, so this sun-trap, with its sun-warmed rock, clearly suits it very well.
Wall browns are very skittish insects, never settling for long in one place. This individual alternated between basking on its pile of rocks and feeding on herb robert flowers blooming amongst the stones.
The convenient supply of floral nectar meant that this one was constantly disturbed by rival males that tried to take over its domain. Wall browns are ferociously territorial, so each one of these incursions resulted in an aerial dogfight, as the butterflies spiralled upwards, so close to me that I could hear their wings clashing, before they separated and fluttered back to their respective territories.
Eventually a female arrived and courtsship began, with the pair walking through the grass and the male tapping the female with his antennae. I think the male is the closer of the two in this picture, with some wing edge damage that might have occurred during one of those bruising dogfights with a rival.
Wall brown colonies tend to be small and don't often persist in the same place for long, but this quarry site is sheltered and warm, with plenty of the caterpillar food plants (grasses), so it might last for a few years.
The warm piles of stones in the quarry are also excellent habitat for sun-basking common darter dragonflies ....
..... chirruping field grasshoppers Chorthippus brunneus
..... and this devil's coach-horse Ocypus olens. This beetle (more pics here) isn't often seen out and about in bright sunlight - it's more often seen in twilight.
Durham County Council deserves great credit for the way it has planted roundabouts and road verges with colourful cornfield annuals.
This vibrant display is on the roundabout at the junction of the A68 and A689, just west of Crook. The rowan trees in the centre always produce a fine crop of berries but this year the addition of the flowers has produced a stunning display.
Corn marigold, cornflower, ox-eye daisy and corn poppy. A wonderful tapestry of colour.
Managing road verges in this way is a win-win-win strategy. It provides loads of nectar and pollen for insects, reduces maintenance, and makes a superb addition to the landscape.
This roundabout sits at the gateway to Weardale, part of the North Pennines Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty that is famous for its colourful meadows in summer. It provides a wonderful welcome to visitors to the dale.
Today's Guardian Country Diary is about birds that nest on moorland in Weardale, and the ways in which they defend their fledglings.
Of these, my favourite has to be the curlew. In spring it has that spine-tingling mating call delivered in a long glide across the heather but now, when there are fledglings about, its alarm call is sometimes almost like the yelping of a small dog.
These birds circled around us, trying to lure us away from their fledglings, while we were walking part of the Weardale Way near Wolsingham.
We spent a fascinating afternoon recently watching dragonfly behaviour at Ashes quarry at Stanhope in Weardale.
The most numerous dragonflies in the shallow, moss-edged pools there are common darters, Sympetrum striolatum. We watched them on their egg-laying flights, where the male tows the female around, attached by the tip of his abdomen to a point just behind her head.
Coupling up like this is the male's way of defending the female he has inseminated, preventing rival males from mating with her and displacing his sperm.
It's an unwieldy arrangement. At frequent intervals the male lowers his abdomen, forcing the female down to the water surface where she drops fertilised eggs from the tip of her abdomen.
That's an awkward manoeuvre, when the male momentarily hovers in this vertical position.
The males are fiercely defensive of their territory, often perching on a favourite stone or ....
... plant stem, ready to drive off rivals and pursue any passing female.
The second commonest dragonflies at this site are black darters Sympetrum danae. There seemed to be quite a lot of interspecific aggro - we watched several aerial battles between the two species.
These dragonflies land with their wings outstretched but ....
... finally come to rest with them in this swept-forward configuration.
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