Wet Sleddale with Small Pearl Bordered Fritillary and Marsh Fritillary

 Red squirrel in the woods surrounding Shap Wells Hotel were a diversion  during sharp showers.   They're confiding, and wary, frisking away into the trees and across the beck, gone in an instant, and back again.  
No rain since early April then  summer brings welcome showers.  Wet Sleddale is close to the Shap summit and the OS map tells that water is its element. Moss and mire are in the place names: Gambling Moss, Hall Moss, Wheelmire Hill and Mirethwaite, Blea Moss and Turnmire Bottom.   

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At Wet Sleddale more rain-clouds approach from the west and the track is awash.  Our feet squelch amongst grass tussocks.  This is peak flight-time for Marsh Fritillary and Small Pearl Bordered Fritillary but in early June  finding them in such unsettled weather  might seem a forlorn hope.  We soon find leaves of  Devil's-Bit Scabious, the food plant of Marsh Fritillary larvae.  And Marsh Violet, food plant of Small Pearl Bordered Fritillary.
The rain eases and the temperature rises a little, with bursts of sun.  Vegetation is drenched and my first images of  Small Pearl  show blades of grass with raindrops.  Butterflies  conserve their energy in cool and wet weather and they fly low and briefly, if al all. But when they alight they stay for some while so it's a good photo-opportunity- especially when there's a keen-eyed butterfly expert to follow their flight and point out where they've settled.  Moss and mire is the favoured habitat for these species.  A stone bridge spans Sleddale Beck and its solidity contrasts with the fragile Marsh Fritillaries and Small Pearls on the wing, low over the saturated vegetation. 

There's bilberry growing beneath a fringe of trees close by the reservoir, a likely spot for Green Hairstreak.  Butterwort flowers beside gills and one of my images shows sundew pushing against it, two carnivorous species in competition.  Sphagnum moss is saturated and sundew lurks, filaments tipped with a sticky substance to entrap insect prey.  The first butterflies we encounter are Small Pearls.
Since I came here in late May there has been refreshing rain  and the flora of moss and mire has responded quickly.  Suddenly, there's Heath Spotted Orchid in profusion.  In a few weeks the fellside will be yellow with the flowers of bog asphodel.  There are the blue flowers of bugle and traces of its leaves amongst sphagnum moss. 

A small herd of Belted Galloways grazes near Sleddale Beck, amongst cotton grass.  There's a bull amongst the cows and they're curious, but wary of us.  Marsh Fritillary  flit amongst vegetation close to the cattle.   There's a sole thistle flowering amongst sedge, rush and tussocks and a Marsh Fritillary nectars on the flower, its wings closed and so presenting the underwing- a softer and more delicate colour pattern.   
These Belted Galloways are vital for conservation grazing which maintains habitat that Marsh Fritillary depend on.  So Butterfly Conservation works alongside farmers to ensure butterflies have optimum habitat.