Drifts of compositae on Scout Scar To interpret butterflies on Scout Scar in late June I am alert to season, to when new broods emerge and to the way the morning's weather develops. A blaze of blue sky with a mid-morning breeze that is pleasant. Micro-moths about drifts of yellow hawkbit. Painted ladies scarcely settle. A glimpse of common blue and fritillary but larger butterflies are restless. Someone sees an adder or was it a slow worm? By late morning there comes a surge of hot and humid air, a reminder that France suffers with a record temperature of 46.9 degrees.
There is purple thyme, the first of yellow ladies' bedstraw, white bedstraws and thistles soon to burst into flower. Driifts of yellow compositae over limestone clitter. Distant flowers seem dense but it's an illusion- the effect of perspective.
As hot and humid air banishes the breeze I begin to see fritillaries but the only insect that settles in the six-spot burnet moth which crawls amongst flowers of thyme. A striking moth, jolie-laide, with its beautiful scarlet wings and a burnish of blue on its antennae but a black furry body. As it feeds my image shows the hollow tube of its proboscis curving into a source of nectar in thyme flowers. The six- spot burnet flies in a blurr of scarlet, with rapid wing-beats.
As hot and humid air banishes the breeze I begin to see fritillaries but the only insect that settles in the six-spot burnet moth which crawls amongst flowers of thyme. A striking moth, jolie-laide, with its beautiful scarlet wings and a burnish of blue on its antennae but a black furry body. As it feeds my image shows the hollow tube of its proboscis curving into a source of nectar in thyme flowers. The six- spot burnet flies in a blurr of scarlet, with rapid wing-beats.
I know a place where many of my finds over the years have come together. Here linnet breed and I heard their call and watched them flit over the scrub, perching in the tops of hawthorns. I found the patch of dyer's greenweed that flowers at this season- it's the only location I know on Scout Scar for the flower. Not abundant this year, but present. And there's a tway-blade close by.
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