Dark Green Fritillary nectaring on thistle It's so clear I can make out the distant waterfalls of Stickle Ghyll and the gloomy cleft of Dungeon Ghyll. Pools of light and shadow over the Langdale Pikes. My heart is in the fells . A day of vistas and Sunday’s strong winds ease through the morning.
‘I know a bank whereon the wild thyme blows.’ Butterflies will choose a sunny glade, a sheltered spot where warm air lingers over flowers rich in nectar, Their favourite bramble and thistle are on today's menu.
A hint of blue at my feet, like the petals of a flower. A long stem of seeding blue moor grass, not petals but wings.
‘I know a bank whereon the wild thyme blows.’ Butterflies will choose a sunny glade, a sheltered spot where warm air lingers over flowers rich in nectar, Their favourite bramble and thistle are on today's menu.
A hint of blue at my feet, like the petals of a flower. A long stem of seeding blue moor grass, not petals but wings.
A pair of Common Blue butterflies lock their feet in the grass seed-head and mate. The wind tosses the stem of grass this way and that but they're locked together and clinging to the seed- head. Once butterflies are mating they stay intent on procreation - perhaps they cannot quickly unlock. The wide arc swept by their grass stem finds my shadow over the butterflies. The usual response would be of flight but now it seems not to affect them. Mating takes some time- a strange evolution because they are so vulnerable in coitus. The lovely pattern of their under-wing is similar but the male opens his wings to blue and the female to warm brown.
Their grass-stem is tossed about in gusts of wind, in and out of frame, in and out of focus. The butterflies are like pole vaulters, flung into the air in an arc of flight. In their short life on the wing they must feed and breed and today is not as wild as yesterday. I love the pattern and texture of this tiny butterfly, and the chance to admire its beauty.
Their grass-stem is tossed about in gusts of wind, in and out of frame, in and out of focus. The butterflies are like pole vaulters, flung into the air in an arc of flight. In their short life on the wing they must feed and breed and today is not as wild as yesterday. I love the pattern and texture of this tiny butterfly, and the chance to admire its beauty.
By late-morning the sun breaks through the clouds and Dark Green Fritillary settle on bramble flowers. The butterfly is named for the dark green shading of the under-wing, visible here. I like the hiding places and deep shadow within a bramble bush and the way sunlight makes the butterfly's wings translucent.
Until the sun prevailed the morning was all about vistas. All my butterflies came late in the day's excursion. Days of rain bring forth flowers more abundantly and thistles are in bloom. Finding ragwort, I looked for the caterpillars of cinnabar moth whose yellow and black complements the flowers it feeds on. As I watched a Dark Green Fritillary settled on a thistle, seeking nectar. Then came a red-tailed bumble bee.
Ragwort is the food plant of the cinnabar moth caterpillar and they're easy to find. The moth is more elusive.
Ragwort is the food plant of the cinnabar moth caterpillar and they're easy to find. The moth is more elusive.
If this seems a glut of butterfly images only consider that I took three hundred today. We lose insect species and we lose abundance so let's celebrate them while we may. Winter floods were followed by drought and the hottest May on record and now the cattle trod off Scout Scar is poached, with pools of water! Extreme weather conditions put wildlife under stress and in the last week there have been days of rain when butterflies could neither feed nor fly.
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