As soon as we set off around the meadows with the dog on Friday morning, it was apparent that something momentous was going on with red admirals:

Hundreds if not thousands of red admirals had flown across The Channel and arrived in the meadows overnight, and were now fluttering out of the hedgerows and long grasses wherever we went.

It was difficult to take photographs to demonstrate the scale of the irruption:

I did take a very large number of photos, and even tried to get a bit arty:

Red admiral butterflies are migratory and travel northwards from North Africa and Continental Europe as the spring and summer proceed. The species overwinters as adults, and nearly all found in Britain will have migrated here because they are mostly unable to survive our winters. There is recent evidence, however, to suggest that some are now successfully getting through the winter in the extreme south of England.

Sandwich Bay Bird Observatory, just up the coast, post their daily sightings of butterflies and I could see that they, too, had had a big arrival of red admirals,

Whilst I was admiring these admirable admirals, I couldn’t help wondering what was going to happen to them all, now that the summer was coming to an end and our unsurvivable winter was just around the corner. So I was very pleased to read that many do undertake a southerly migration back across The Channel before the end of autumn.

There were also quite a few painted ladies that had arrived along with the red admirals and these were the first painted ladies that we had seen all year:

In the sunshine of Saturday, we also saw our normal butterflies who must have been wondering what on earth was going on:

Both wasp spiders that I have been watching have now left their webs to build a cocoon somewhere close by, and we take that as our sign to commence cutting the meadows, mindful that there is a lot to do before the weather collapses into winter.

As always foxes, magpies, kestrels and many others are very interested to see if the cutting has thrown up any opportunities for them:

I spotted this large privet hawk-moth caterpillar clinging to Dave’s trousers as we were returning to the house one day:

They are the most amazing things. I was particularly taken with how the white slashes end with a series of spots:

Since Dave hadn’t been brushing up against any privet, we presumed that the caterpillar had wandered away from its larval food plant to look for somewhere to pupate. We decided that it was best to return it to some privet so that it could start its journey again, heading off where it wants to go

We have never found a privet hawk-moth caterpillar in the meadows before, but we often had the adults in the moth trap. It is the UK’s largest resident moth:

I also found this small purple-and-white caterpillar which is likely a lime-speck pug moth

Late summer is the time when slow worms ‘give birth’. I put this in commas because it is not the same as in mammals – slow worms incubate their eggs within their body and, once the eggs hatch, up to twelve young emerge from the female.

We haven’t seen any slow worm babies – or neonates as they are called – in the meadows yet, although I did find some in our daughter’s garden in the North Downs today:

Whilst we were looking under the reptile sampling squares in the meadows, hoping for neonate slow worms, we uncovered this vole. With that chestnutty colour and less rounded head shape, I believe that this is a bank vole rather than a short-tailed field vole:

We haven’t seen quite so much of the ringed kestrel this week, but her place has been taken by this sparrowhawk:

It’s always lovely to see sparrowhawks in flight:

They are magnificent birds, but I am less impressed with the sorry piles of feathers they leave in their wake:

Last week, a whinchat was seen in the meadows:

John the bird ringer has sent me a photo of a whinchat that he took recently at Sandwich Bay Bird Observatory, which more clearly shows what a young whinchat is like:

Other birds on passage have been seen at the wood:

Our resident birds are appearing on the cameras as well. Adult bullfinch have been in the wood all summer but now, for the first time this year, here is one of their young:

This next photo is a joyous mix of blue tit, great tit, marsh tit and song thrush:

And a tawny owl still continues to bath at this pond, even though the nights are now much cooler:

My last photo for today is of another neonate – our lovely little granddaughter who was born yesterday:

I can’t wait to start teaching her about the wildlife in the meadows and the wood, but she’s perhaps a little young at the moment.

As I walked round the meadows this morning, the sky was alive with house martins and there was a distinct autumnal nip to the air. Torrential rain fell over the second half of the weekend and now only a few butterflies are stuttering about under a glowering sky. Evidence of the changing of the season is everywhere, drawing a line under the summer. But in many ways autumn represents a fresh new start for us, with some exciting new wildlife projects being planned, and I am looking forward to it.