Buff-tip moth and Dark Green Fritillary

Dark Green Fritillary

The Buff-tip moth fascinates  as we pass around egg-boxes and marvel at camouflage.  It’s a night-flying moth,  with cryptic colouring and design that  resembles a broken-off fragment of birch twig. Wings held close to the body, a twig with legs.  George tells of being out last night on Foulshaw Moss and Latterbarrow until well after midnight,  placing traps for moths that won’t emerge until  the early hours.  The Buff-tip is common and widespread but I can’t recall having seen it before and it's unforgettable. The evolution of such a creature is remarkable.  Survival of the best adaptation, says David.   

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I wish I’d photographed it but the morning began dull and rain-clouds loured.  There are images on-line and  from The Wildlife Trusts. Take a look, it’s a wonder. 

The Wildlife Trusts
https://www.wildlifetrusts.org/.../inve…
   

Today's Butterfly Conservation meet  begins with the opening of moth-traps.  The  Buff ermine moth. has a cape of fine hairs around the head and a pale abdomen with dark ermine spots.  Its wings are a delicate cream-colour.  Some are so tiny, their camouflage so subtle that  they're hard to see even when they're close.  There's a  Pale Emerald and others whose names I've forgotten.  Standing in a circle passing round egg-boxes and  moth-names is like a game of Chinese whispers.  Merveille du Jour - is she awed by its beauty or is this its name?  One moth has only a Greek name, 'I'll test you later,' says Martin.    Such a show is a revelation,  an insight into a wealth of wonders in our gardens, in woodland and on the mosses.   But numbers fall progressively and dramatically.   That's why it's so heartening to learn from those here today who are working so hard at conservation. 

There's a generous sharing of finds, of field-craft and of information from experts Chris and Martin.   And from sharp-sighted and knowledgeable companions who know eagerness isn't enough for someone like me with a moth-eaten macula  It's like looking for butterflies through a mask of moth-holes.   So,  help is here for finding butterflies that can be down amongst the grasses, half-hidden amongst leaves and well camouflaged. But when experts come together there's an element of competition too. Two men with butterfly nets wade  through tall, seeding grasses in pursuit of Dark Green Fritillary.  Who will net the first, the freshest and finest?   Whose ice-packs will serve best to sedate a lively butterfly?  Once netted.  a DGF is carefully placed in a transparent plastic tube, then placed in darkness close to ice-packs where it will be calmly sedated. So when it is freed into daylight and gently lowered onto a thistle beside several soldier beetles the butterfly will  settle for a few minutes before flying off, perfectly unharmed by someone licenced to anaesthetise. 
Dark Green Fritillary was the highlight of the afternoon for most of us.  High Brown Fritillary are here but not yet emerged, they're rather late this cool and wet season.  We saw several Northern Brown Argus,  Ringlets a-plenty and Meadow Brown.   And several beautiful common blue.
On our return walk we passed the site of a medieval farmstead and David pointed-out that the grasses growing there were varieties that were once cultivated here. There's an ancient damson orchard too.  In taking butterfly photographs it was sometimes impossible to focus through a veil of seeding grasses but they're beautiful and I think they enhance an image. So, thanks to everyone at this Butterfly Conservation day, to Chris,  George, David and Rose. And Martin,  each and every Martin.