There is a cornucopia of nature around at the moment. The Dartmoor ponies are almost a joy to behold and often fairly close to the footpaths at the Lodge. In the Swiss Garden I occasionally see muntjac deer which just maintain their distance like the one in the pictures. Continuing down in scale, coot chicks are looking very cute. I hear the green woodpeckers regularly at the Lodge but rarely see one perched. A lady wildlife photographer pointed the silhouetted one to me. A very iconic shaped bird. There are gatekeeper butterflies in abundance at the moment, some sharing the ragwort with soldier beetles. There are also plenty of one of my favourite butterflies, the brimstone, enjoying the purple flowers with large and small white butterflies. A plant that I do not recognise is very popular with buff-tailed bumblebees and 7-spot ladybirds. At the smallest scale there are horse chestnut leaf mining moths. They are tiny 4-5 mm long moths which reek havoc with horse chestnut trees by laying eggs inside the leaves where the caterpillars eat the interior of the leaves with the result that the leaves are dropped in summer rather than autumn. They are so small it is difficult to get a good photo with my normal cameras but the impact on the leaves is much easier to capture.