Small skipper, Scout Scar. 18 July A glimpse of small skipper was enticing. Two days later this golden butterfly appeared once more on the sunny slope where scabious grew thick. A brood had hatched and was on the wing. As sunlight broke through alto-cumulus cloud butterflies spun a web around me, in courtship dance, in a feeding frenzy. This patch of scabious must be a rich source of nectar, a butterfly hot-spot. I am all involved in the butterfly experience so I settle into stillness and the magic all about me. No need to seek further, here and now is everything. I am silent, my shadow scarcely stirs, I am so still it's as if I am become invisible.
The morning was hot, calm and still. So many butterflies, it's a chance to see how they interact with flowers . Caught up in the here and now, I let my camera immortalise their beauty, their brief lives to be explored through time that long outlasts the butterflies. My camera reveals things hidden to me. A butterfly alights on a scabious and its coiled proboscis unfurls as the butterfly delves amongst the anthers to suck nectar, siphoning it up through this hollow tube. An image of a meadow brown shows the proboscis coiled, then it unfurls and arcs into the flower seeking nectar. In another, it seems as if the proboscis attaches to the anther, clasping it.
One small skipper alighted on a flower in a tangle of seeding grasses at my feet. I struggled to photograph without disturbing it. Grasses can confuse an image, or enhance it. The mix of flowers and grasses is vital butterfly habitat, for foraging and egg- laying.
I've known small skipper for years, but I've never before found them here. Having hatched, the brood stayed close- so I found them on the same flowers. It's rare to find a hot-spot where butterflies congregate all morning and there is ample time to watch, to experience and to photograph. All that egg-laying amongst seeding and sun-burnt grasses. Summer's heat-wave shows no sign of coming to an end. When eggs hatch how will larvae find food in this parched grassland? That single cinnabar moth caterpillar amongst shrivelled ragwort leaves! Then cocoons sheathed in silk overwintering amongst the grasses. How will numbers fare, for next summer?
Coming home, I meet someone whose wildlife coup was watching an adder ' this big' he says, eyes wide in wonder. And he has the video to prove it. The weather has been perfect and there have been sightings on Scout Scar. In time, there will be reports on the impact of summer 2018 on butterflies, on wildlife as we try to put our experience into perspective.
A couple of days later there's cloud cover and the air is cooler, and for a moment, a mere moment, the finest rain. Bees nectar on scabious and as I walk micro-moths rise from the grasses. A flock of starlings in ash trees. I can find no trace of those beautiful butterflies.
Footnote: Butterfly versus spider, the next blog, is a part of this same morning at the same spot.
Click on images to enlarge and read captions. Please respect copyright
Coming home, I meet someone whose wildlife coup was watching an adder ' this big' he says, eyes wide in wonder. And he has the video to prove it. The weather has been perfect and there have been sightings on Scout Scar. In time, there will be reports on the impact of summer 2018 on butterflies, on wildlife as we try to put our experience into perspective.
A couple of days later there's cloud cover and the air is cooler, and for a moment, a mere moment, the finest rain. Bees nectar on scabious and as I walk micro-moths rise from the grasses. A flock of starlings in ash trees. I can find no trace of those beautiful butterflies.
Footnote: Butterfly versus spider, the next blog, is a part of this same morning at the same spot.
Click on images to enlarge and read captions. Please respect copyright
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