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Painted ladies at sunset

29/6/2018

Painted lady at The Mushroom Shelter

We shared out viewpoint with painted ladies. Delightful to see the butterflies but why they were drawn to the Mushroom Shelter on Scout Scar at the approach of sunset?
During the day, temperatures had climbed to 30 degrees. By 8.00 pm the sun was low in a cloudless sky and a raking light pierced flowers of wood sage and yellow lady's bedstraw, Floral motifs of limestone grassland in late June. Thistles were coming into flower, a source of nectar for painted ladies and a food plant for its caterpillars, and knapweed which is a little later. But the ground around the Mushroom Shelter is bare of flowers so what was the attraction?

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Wings

25/6/2018

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Six- spot burnet moth on thistle

The hottest week of the year, and it's still only June! The sun is up early and unbroken sunshine is promised for the day. Birds with fledglings to feed are busy from first light and there are high pipings, with parents vanishing into bushes to feed their young.
A fritillary in rising flight against a foil of wild roses. Another flies low and languid across my track, as if searching. Over juniper bushes and into seeding grasses.

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Butterflies on Scout Scar

24/6/2018

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Common blue, Polyommatus Icarus

A hot day and the temperature set to rise in the coming week. Butterflies galore on Scout Scar. Flowering grasses astir with micro-moths, small heaths and meadow browns. A flicker of blue tells of Polyommatus Icarus, common blue whose underwing is spectacular.
Fritillaries everywhere on the wing, nectaring on bramble flowers and in pools of sunlight deep in shady bracken. So many, we lost count, our eyes holding some half a dozen fritillaries in wavering flight, a lull, then more.
We found a couple of wheatear, probably juveniles, on the limestone clitter. The flickering tail and flash of white rump as they flew off. Grasshoppers loud in the grass.
By lunchtime it was so hot we found shade under a leafy ash tree and were refreshed.

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Dark Green Fritillary on Scout Scar

22/6/2018

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Dark Green Fritillary on bramble

The sun is up early and the day is warm and calm. The first bramble flowers had opened and the warm sun released nectar and pollen. Yesterday a breeze whipped flowers about and that doesn't suit larger butterflies like the fritillaries. Today was perfect.
In taking photographs I wanted to show how the fritillary interacts with the bramble flowers. How the proboscis probes deep amongst the reproductive parts of the flower, seeking nectar. Delicate butterfly in a balancing act amongst ripping thorns of bramble- no wonder they won't fly when the wind blows. There were bees attracted to the bramble flowers too. The plant is an important source of nectar.

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Six-spot Burnet Moth

21/6/2018

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Six-spot burnet moth on dropwort

The longest day and the six-spot burnet moth is nectaring on dropwort, on hawkweed and on thistles.
It's a striking moth with pairs of scarlet spots on outer wings that shade from black to silver-sheen. And scarlet under-wings that may peep out from beneath them. Its clubbed antennae are steel blue. Its body furry black. Stunning, in a Dracula way.
This summer the six-spot burnet is on the wing. When it settles into nectaring it tends to linger so it isn't difficult to photograph.

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Adlestrop

20/6/2018

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Adlestrop- Edward Thomas saw only the name when his train first drew up at the station. As his gaze fell upon an English countryside he gave us a moment in time, a moment of stillness and peace. It was late June 1914.
'What I saw
Was Adlestrop - only the name
And willows, willow-herb, and grass,
And meadowsweet, and haycocks dry--
And for that minute a blackbird sang
Close by, and round him, mistier,
Farther and farther, all the birds
Of Oxfordshire and Gloucestershire.'

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Scout Scar, nature notes

13/6/2018

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Squinancywort

Squinancywort flowers above Scout Scar escarpment, at your feet, unremarkable unless you stoop and contemplate the detail of its tiny flowers.
A whirr of red and black on the wing announces the six-spot burnet moth, not seen here in numbers for the last six years. Some years entirely absent. It's a striking moth and its underwing is scarlet, its clubbed antennae silvery blue.

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The Redstart diaries

10/6/2018

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Male redstart on whitebeam

Early on a summer's morning the redstart sings in the whitebeam at the heart of his territory. He sings loud, his black beak wide. If disturbed, he might flit to a nearby perch but once he thinks the coast is clear he's soon back on his favourite branch. The whitebeam rises above the escarpment and from here he can see and be seen, and heard.
To know that he'll be here in full song is irresistible. And puzzling. He's here to breed, so what's his story this season?

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June on Scout Scar

9/6/2018

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Fritillary on scabious

Seeding grasses with micro-moths, a common blue butterfly and a lovely fritillary. Few larger butterflies on the wing. The day was warm, still, hazy. The earth cracked and parched through lack of rain.
Earlier in the week pastures about Barrowfield Farm were patterned from cropping of silage. Once the sun has burnt into the cut grass the pattern is lost and the fields are golden.
A dog-walker disturbed the redstart I was photographing and he dipped below the escarpment and sang from a tree just out of sight.

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Painted ladies at sunset

Wings

Butterflies on Scout Scar

Dark Green Fritillary on Scout Scar

Six-spot Burnet Moth

Adlestrop

Scout Scar, nature notes

The Redstart diaries

June on Scout Scar

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