About Whitbarrow with Butterfly Conservation

With a flick of the wrist Martin nets a Grayling in flight and  transfers it to Chris who displays it.  Now we can see the brighter upper-wings, and detail. They're licenced to net butterflies and it's an opportunity to study them.  They stride out into bramble and high bracken on the woodland fringe, focused, nets poised. They're frequently in the field, studying butterflies, auto-ecology and how each species  interacts with habitat.  At the end of the day the experts' tally of numbers and list of species is impressive, even today when the weather does not favour  butterflies on the wing.  

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Sunlight heats limestone rocks scattered below White Crag and Grayling warm themselves- their mottled under-wings an effective camouflage. To survive, to escape predation, butterflies need to hide, their camouflage undetected.  We're here to think and see into their world, the herbal-layer of the woodland edge.    'I forget how small they are,' says Graham,  a quick spotter and an eager  photographer.  So do I. Photography is about exposure.
Martin  calls Grayling, seen amongst a scatter of rocks at the base of the cliff.  He indicates a rock stained and blotched with moss and lichen.  
A Northern Brown Argus alights amongst sedge seed-heads and from the angle of its dark wings it might be the seed itself.  What I see looks like sedge but my camera finds the butterfly and confers upon this fading creature the immortality of a photograph. 

Up on Whitbarrow, high above White Crag, are Wakebarrow and Farrer's Allotment where fritillaries breed. We're delighted to see so many species on the wing because the weather isn't bright sun and cloudless skies. The last hour of the trip we'll be walking the woodland rides through heavy showers, back to the cars drenched. But in spirit we're singing in the rain because it's so exciting.   
Here is field-craft par excellence. Chris sees a Humming Bird Hawk Moth and a High Brown Fritillary. Jules' points out a Silver Washed Fritillary flying high and just clearing the tree-tops.  She follows the flight of another, finds a male settled on a bramble flower and has a fine photograph.  Some of us move cautiously  over rough wet limestone with trip-hazards of brambles  so I see it for a moment, then it flies.  Jules' PhD was on the High Brown Fritillary. Her life is spent amongst butterflies.  ' I still feel giddy each time I see one,' she says of Fritillaries. Delight is the quintessence of being amongst butterflies as they dance through sunlight and shadows on the woodland fringe and vanish  amongst  the flora of the herb-layer.    
Ringlets are not deterred by showers and they're all about us. We share floral finds too. Whitbarrow is predominantly limestone but at a junction in the track there's a spring flush with Brook Weed and Water Mint.  And a mass of Bog Pimpernel which I would not have expected here.  It's a plant of acid soils which I associate with water-tracks in the fells, on peat.  Jules shows us Skullcap, a plant I did not know.  There's bedstraw mingling with Lesser Stitchwort too.

 Jules tells of following the flight of the female High Brown, watching her settle as if to lay eggs- she can adopt the egg-laying posture but may not lay- watching her lay an egg, finding it, recording the site. High Brown is vulnerable, requiring niche habitat.  Thinking into the mind of a High Brown Fritillary, she shows us habitat  that might suit for egg-laying.  Abundant violet, the food-plant of the High Brown caterpillar. But violets do not last through the winter and the female butterfly seeks to lay her egg on more resilient vegetation, fronds of dead bracken, litter where the temperature is warm and  where caterpillars will thrive.   Read Jules' research via  the link  below
Micro-habitat features determine oviposition site selection in High ...
 I'm struck by contrast-  a life of sensation amongst butterflies, with the fragrance of Water Mint,  a silhouette of Silver Washed Fritillary clear of the tree-tops,  wet and slippery limestone, the soft cushion of deep moss over a tree stump at our lunchtime interlude in the rain, the rapid response of butterflies to a burst of sunlight.  Then home again to reflect upon the day- to collate data,  a tally of numbers, species noted and those absent.   Trying to fathom how climate change affects this woodland habitat that butterflies are hefted to and depend upon.  

Thanks to Chris Winnick, Chair of Cumbria Butterfly Conservation
To Martin Chadwick
To Dr Julia Simons
and to companions whose enthusiasm was undiminished in heavy showers.