Painted lady on Knapweed Golden tops is spectacular this summer and pollinators love it. I rather like this name the poet John Clare gave to Ragwort. At Arnside Knott a talk on management for butterflies was complemented by the appearance of a Painted lady in a sunlit glade on the fringe of woodland. My first of this year, even Chris Winnick is only on his second and if they were about he’d have found them.
The light was perfect for photography and the Painted lady showed well, nectaring on Knapweed. Survive, feed and mate- that’s butterfly strategy. Anything more fanciful is probably anthropomorphism, which goes back a long way. Feeding on Knapweed, a Painted lady is vulnerable to predation so how has this bright and colourful butterfly evolved to confuse and deceive predators?
I wonder who gave this lovely butterfly its name. In Elizabethan and Jacobean drama a lady paints her face to deceive, to hide age and disease.
There may be an inference the Painted lady is beautiful through intelligent design. Creationism or evolution? Butterfly genetics fascinates me. I'd like to know more of how pattern and colour has evolved to protect the butterfly.
The Painted lady make-up is colourful, patterned, and imprecise. As if paint seeps and blurs into shapes that follow a genetic pattern that’s irregular. It’s the dazzle-ship strategy, so bold it’s confusing.
There may be an inference the Painted lady is beautiful through intelligent design. Creationism or evolution? Butterfly genetics fascinates me. I'd like to know more of how pattern and colour has evolved to protect the butterfly.
The Painted lady make-up is colourful, patterned, and imprecise. As if paint seeps and blurs into shapes that follow a genetic pattern that’s irregular. It’s the dazzle-ship strategy, so bold it’s confusing.
The Brimstone resembles a leaf in shape and wings are veined like a leaf. And the female underwing has a greenish hue.
A Peacock wing has a false-eye pecked by a bird that mistook what it saw.
Today at Arnside saw a rewarding range of butterflies, discovered by the keen eyes of butterfly enthusiasts. All day, there was a chorus of grasshoppers.
The loveliest evocation of a midsummer woodland is captured when Shakespeare's fairy queen Titania instructs her fairies Peaseblossom, Cobweb, Moth and Mustardseed to tend Nick Bottom the weaver with whom. under enchantment, she is in love.
The honeybags steal from the humblebees
And for night-tapers crop their waxen thighs
And light them at the fiery glow-worm's eyes
To have my love to bed, and to arise
And pluck the wings from painted butterflies
To fan the moon-beams from his sleeping eyes.
A Midsummer Night's Dream Act 111, scene 1 Shakespeare
Somehow the scene drifts from a woodland glade to the rich interior of an Elizabethan house with embroideries and fans painted with butterflies. Who painted those butterflies? Some divine hand was at work here.
A Peacock wing has a false-eye pecked by a bird that mistook what it saw.
Today at Arnside saw a rewarding range of butterflies, discovered by the keen eyes of butterfly enthusiasts. All day, there was a chorus of grasshoppers.
The loveliest evocation of a midsummer woodland is captured when Shakespeare's fairy queen Titania instructs her fairies Peaseblossom, Cobweb, Moth and Mustardseed to tend Nick Bottom the weaver with whom. under enchantment, she is in love.
The honeybags steal from the humblebees
And for night-tapers crop their waxen thighs
And light them at the fiery glow-worm's eyes
To have my love to bed, and to arise
And pluck the wings from painted butterflies
To fan the moon-beams from his sleeping eyes.
A Midsummer Night's Dream Act 111, scene 1 Shakespeare
Somehow the scene drifts from a woodland glade to the rich interior of an Elizabethan house with embroideries and fans painted with butterflies. Who painted those butterflies? Some divine hand was at work here.
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