An A* day again...what a great thing it is to live on the Isle of Wight. We did a little round walk from Samuel's history walks book (by Adrian Searle) from Mottistone Manor up to the Long Stone and round and back down to the church.

Another ten days have passed since my last entry! Yesterday, late afternoon I did a "history walk" with Samuel from Brook, along Compton Bay, up and around farmland then back to Brook Chine car park. I had only been on Compton Beach the previous week with school children learning about seaweeds. However, this time it was just us and the tide was very low (Samuel had checked online to plan our walk for low tide) and we wandered along the lowest point of shore gawping and multi-coloured seaweeds and mudstone and the giant iguanodon footprint casts which put the Isle of Wight on my list of coolest ever places I've lived when I first found out about them on my boss's geology walk in May 2007. The early autumn sunshine was perfect yesterday. We hardly met anyone on the farmland. We looked at late, plump blackberries (and ate some) a badger set and quite possibly a bird that was a Whinchat!

Yesterday we had a trip of a lifetime to Brickfields with 12 volunteers. The sun shone. The meadows were purple with Devils bit scabious flower and Davie the harbour master hauled out even the most stiff legged volunteers. This is me driving the sea sled at last! Summer has gone very quickly.

Today We finally identified John our neighbour's mystery butterfly that was found in his shed at Wilma near Rolls Copse. Barry Angell confirmed that indeed, as I had suspected it was a rare aberration of a White Admiral called ab. nigrina. Until this year I had not known anything about aberrations. One of the reasons, according to Andy Butler local butterfly expert is that they are kept out of public domain due to irresponsible and fanatical collectors that would pin butterflies and make them rarer/cause problems with land they are accessing.

I am interested to know more, preferably to the very genetic level. It is known that sudden changes of temperature cause these aberrations but how? Do they actually affect the genetic translation from DNA to RNA or what?

Anyhow, There is always so much to write in this blog and so little time: and I am at work! Now for the night wildlife workshop preparation!!!

Ebony and Snowdon are two recent editions to our garden from the Chale Show. They are Pekin bantams. Snowdon a boy, Ebony a girl. They are no longer scared of the other chickens and seem happy. They are resembling two fluffy balls. Alfie, Mike and Sarah went home this morning after a very hot and lovely summer weekend where we went on the steam train and went to the botanic garden and beach the day before.

Today was my third Wild Child Club and we went out to the quay in hot sunshine. It renewed my love of marine biology as we discovered tiny brittlestars that were living in the salt pan.

Tonight for a couple of hours I have been light trapping moths in our garden for the first time. I have identified 5 so far: Marbled Beauty, Brimstone, Straw Dot, Light Emerald and Setaceous Hebrew Character.

Quite pleased with myself now! Need sleep though! Also think I should focus my marine thoughts into this blog a little more and decide where my work/life direction is heading!

Today we went to the the sea service at Newtown at 3pm down at the quay in the wind and sunshine. It is my third year as the seasonal nature reserve warden and the last two sea services I have either been busy or away on the mainland. It was really nice to go, meaningful to be outdoors and the refreshments in the boatshed were delicious. I am on my way to a fiddle concert at Havenstreet with Samuel. I am preparing props for my children's activities at Newtown and yesterday I bought a suitable smugglers chest! Above is a picture of such a chest and a home-made puppet theatre used for marine nature and ecology education at Chichester Harbour.

31st May: Wow.....I have got some rest since we finished celebrating effectively 27months of planning and preparing two weddings with our huge families. On 23rd May we had a "blessing" in France at Samuel's church. It was just right for Samuel and I enjoyed the party more than I usually would. I would like to write more about the weddings as it is quite unusual the way we did things. I would also like to keep in touch with people we met on honeymoon and thank all the people who have been so generous to us. Since we got back the weather has turned exceptionally warm and sunny. There has been a great migration of painted lady butterflies (see photograph above) and I counted 21 on a woodland transect where I wouldn't usually see them. I think this is amazing...to witness a migration of a butterfly that has hatched in Northern Morocco make its way onward to mainland Britain. I only saw one or two in meadows last year so I think that this is a special year for this butterfly. One day, maybe when I am older I would like to witness the Monarch butterfly migration in Mexico...but who needs to when this natural phenomenon occurs on your doorstep?