Comma and Brimstone Butterfly

Comma on Angelica flowers

For three summers we've come here seeking SIlver Washed Fritillary in late July, early August.  Three weeks ago hemp agrimony, a favoured nectaring plant, was budding.  In the interim, July and early August weather has been showery and cool and on this day last year SIlver Washed Fritillary were ragged but easy to find   Watching  over some hours their size and wing-shape, their pattern of flight against the dark shadows of the woodland fringe refreshes  the jizz and a sense of familiarity. 

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The morning's weather augured well for butterflies, damselflies and dragonflies. The temperature rose to the mid-twenties,  the air was still and humid. The wood was peaceful, with calls of nuthatch and long-tailed tits but there were few insects on the wing.
The butterfly of the morning was brimstone and they were fresh and lovely.  Fragrant water-mint was in flower but fading, with purple loosestrife and yellow loosestrife.  This time last year the flora was still fresh.  Now a rainy summer had made vegetation rank but the flowers hadn't lasted.  With less nectar available there were far fewer butterflies.  We enjoyed the few that appeared when the sun broke through cloud. 

Few butterflies because there were few flowers offering nectar, it seemed to us.  Hemp agrimony attracts SIilver Washed Fritillary but its flowers were fading.  Autumn fruits were ripening;  glossy red berries of guelder rose, elderberries, hawthorn and green berries on black bryony. 

With butterflies,  a clear view is rarely the woodland experience.    There can be elusive glimpses of butterflies gone in seconds. When one alights on a flower it can be distant, somewhere is a mass of flowers and screened by tall summer grasses.   Over a sequence of shots I shift position to be clear of a vertical blade of grass in front of that beautiful comma. But an arc of seeding grass enhances the image and I rather like the sense of late-summer surrounding the butterfly. 
We return to the spot where holly blue danced about our feet but they are gone.  Driving home along a country lane, we glimpse a blue butterfly- too fleeting to be sure. 

On 26 July 2021 we were here in this favoured spot,  delighting to see so many Silver Washed Fritillary and several Comma.   The Comma nectared on Hemp Agrimony, its wings closed to show the ragged profile and the white 'comma' on the underwing.  The butterfly looks sinister.  We had only a glimpse of the bright upper-wings.
So on this August morning in 2023 I was pleased to see the rich colour on a Comma, alighted with open wings first on Hemp Agrimony, then on Angelica.