It’s some ten months ago that we installed a surveillance camera in our backyard to get photos for the girls of our fox Trotter. Since then we have had photos and videos of magpies, crows, jays, tits, hares, squirrels, wolverine, lynx, woodcock, buzzards, raccoon dogs, badgers, even moths. No Trotter – till a week ago.
A shy one, this Trotter
When it came into the open we saw it’s not the one we have seen for years here; not a red fox at all but a cross.
Just a timid and hungry cub, in fact. It has visited us several times now but only that first time in daylight – maybe to introduce itself properly…
The second newcomer has almost the same colouring:
A silver-washed fritillary, form valezina
For years, we have been looking at every silver-washed fritillary, hoping to see this fairly rare form – now there are at least two of them in the garden.
Once again, the summer has been a seesaw one but the garden has adjusted admirably to that. We have eaten our first melon
Tiny but lovely
and are trying to remember how we made those chilli preserves
and whether we have had grated ginger in the cabbage casseroles.
Fortunately, there is still quite a lot of growing that doesn’t need (or wish for) our assistance:
Gem squashes
Other kinds of squashes (plenty)
Garlic and Jerusalem artichoke
Tomatillos – oh well, just some additional 5 metres of string every week…
… so we can escape to the wild:
No need for garden raspberries when the wild ones are so luscious
Ceps at their best
A treasure trove – wetland chanterelles
A spreading bellflower living up to its name
Northbynorth 
Gorgeous fritillary. Our area is pretty limited in types of butterflies. I wonder if it’s because of the wind? We’re seeing more varieties every year, this year we saw small coppers for the first time, but no fritillaries. Your harvests are looking good, especially the tomatillos! We’re just going through a stormy period but no damage apart from lots of fallen apples. First time we have a decent blueberry harvest on our seven year old bushes.
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We are rather ideally situated for butterflies: a south-facing hillside with forests, meadows and gardens; we have had in our garden more than 30 species. Just now we have the newly hatched second generation of Mourning Cloaks (Camberwell beauties) all over the place.
Your apple harvest sounds enviable – our trees are mostly old varieties and bear well every second year; this not being that year.
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Fantastic Mr(s?) Fox! Well worth the wait for that footage, I’d say. How do you manage to persuade your fritillaries to stay still long enough for a photo? We have green-washed ones here but I’ve yet to manage a picture worth sharing. Your harvest is looking great, we’re all set for the first melon here in the next few days, no raspberries wild or otherwise but we’ve started picking pears today. Enjoy those sunsets! 🙂
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Most butterflies have a good attention span when enjoying the oregano bed (the only reason why I haven’t got rid of that thuggish misery) so you just crawl nearer taking photos from “You might not notice it but in the upper left hand corner…” to “Don’t sit on the lense, please!”
Ripe pears sound lovely! No chance to grow them here…
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