No pics of Pic-mar in Picardie

 Another quick trip to the Somme estuary is search of foreign butterflies and Mediterranean heat was scotched by unrelenting cloud and cool winds. But never mind, always look on the bright side of life...... there were some interesting bugs in Crecy forest. Top prize goes to bee chafers, above, closely followed by the spectacularly iridescent chafers below.

 In the leaf mould, it was good to find wood crickets (a true cricket, I'm told).

 A few butterflies braved the weather, including some energetically mating white admirals, and a cool green-veined white.

 Floral highlights were limited to strange thistles, of which the lettuce thistle was the strangest, and a fine verge near Saillay Bray of poppies, corn marigolds and a host of other relicts.

 As for birds, well, we saw a middle-spotted woodpecker (pic-mar as the French would say) which flew off when it saw the camera, after reasonable views of it at the edge of the wood. Mel had seen one drinking at a pool earlier, but had not managed to convince me of the ID until we saw this one nearby.

A few marsh warblers gave loud song, but bluethroats were not going to be so easy.

Kittiwakes by the hundred were fledging in Bolougne harbour, on the ferry terminal.