did you ever...

...see stained glass more beautiful than these wings?

Even at 9am the grey misty weather made it feel more like 7am, so we shelved our original plan of going back to Wareham Forest and decided to wait for a little brightness before heading to our local Townsend nature reserve.

When we arrived, just before lunch, we were pleased to see plenty of yarrow and wild carrot still attracting plenty of insects. Better still, there was almost no wind, which is a rare occurrence this year! The lack of air movement more than made up for the poor light and I came home feeling pretty confident, but it was only when I brought the images up on the laptop that I saw just how beautiful the patterning and coloration was in this ichneumon wasp's wings - there is almost a rose where the veins in its four wings have overlapped. (Even better viewed large)

Ichneumon wasps are devilish to id as there are so many species (over 6,000 in the UK), many of which are very similar. This one is a Cosmoconus sp. probably elongator and, as there are no Dorset records of it in the national register, I will be submitting this image and details to the county recorder...