Six- spot burnet moth on thistle The hottest week of the year, and it's still only June! The sun is up early and unbroken sunshine is promised for the day. Birds with fledglings to feed are busy from first light and there are high pipings, with parents vanishing into bushes to feed their young.
A fritillary in rising flight against a foil of wild roses. Another flies low and languid across my track, as if searching. Over juniper bushes and into seeding grasses.
A fritillary in rising flight against a foil of wild roses. Another flies low and languid across my track, as if searching. Over juniper bushes and into seeding grasses.
In the last few days bramble flowers have opened to the hot sun and attract bees, hoverflies and fritillaries. South facing bushes are first to flower, first to release nectar. 'Sources of the best nectar are too infrequent', says Chris Winnick. And if bees and hoverflies have been there first the bramble flowers may be out of nectar. The butterflies come dancing in wavering flight, a crowd of five or six. Then they're gone and all is still. 'Some species are colonial and do not travel more than 50-100 metres from their birth place. Small tortoiseshell appear singly. ' Yes, I've noticed the tortoiseshell solitary habit.
I return along the ridge we walked yesterday, listening to linnet and goldfinch. The flora of the limestone grassland has a herbal fragrance, with thyme and lady's bedstraw. Do butterflies track pollen in the air and is that what's happening as they fly low? It's so hot I'm daubed with sun-screen and I wonder if they pick that up too.
As I stand looking out across the landscape a cluster of fritillaries comes in wavering course about the bramble flowers and several of them settle, for only a moment. There are pools of light and shadow amongst brambles and bracken and sunlight renders their delicate wings translucent. They are restless, off and away in seconds. So photography is a challenge.
A six-spot burnet fumbles a thistle and light pouring through its wings reminds me of stained glass windows. Rich colour flows liquid through its wings, dark veins and borders of black. The moth looks nothing like itself. Out of a crucible of heat, a metamorphosis.
On an anthill of purple thyme a meadow brown seems to have colour burnt out of it by sunlight and its a picture of fragility. Like fine ash that a puff of wind would blow into nothing.
The sun blazes down on Scout Scar and I'd like a parasol, to shade me from the sun. A leafy ash tree casts a pool of shadow and as I stand in its shade looking up into its canopy of green I hear a young bird above me, piping to be fed. Parasol: against the sun. By mid- morning I've been out several hours and I'm melting too.
I return along the ridge we walked yesterday, listening to linnet and goldfinch. The flora of the limestone grassland has a herbal fragrance, with thyme and lady's bedstraw. Do butterflies track pollen in the air and is that what's happening as they fly low? It's so hot I'm daubed with sun-screen and I wonder if they pick that up too.
As I stand looking out across the landscape a cluster of fritillaries comes in wavering course about the bramble flowers and several of them settle, for only a moment. There are pools of light and shadow amongst brambles and bracken and sunlight renders their delicate wings translucent. They are restless, off and away in seconds. So photography is a challenge.
A six-spot burnet fumbles a thistle and light pouring through its wings reminds me of stained glass windows. Rich colour flows liquid through its wings, dark veins and borders of black. The moth looks nothing like itself. Out of a crucible of heat, a metamorphosis.
On an anthill of purple thyme a meadow brown seems to have colour burnt out of it by sunlight and its a picture of fragility. Like fine ash that a puff of wind would blow into nothing.
The sun blazes down on Scout Scar and I'd like a parasol, to shade me from the sun. A leafy ash tree casts a pool of shadow and as I stand in its shade looking up into its canopy of green I hear a young bird above me, piping to be fed. Parasol: against the sun. By mid- morning I've been out several hours and I'm melting too.
My morning of butterflies is enchanting. The sensuous fragrance and hot sun, the weave of wings all about me, sharp shadows of flowers cast on fragments of limestone, the next generation of birds of Scout Scar. And the solitude of an early morning. The whole story eludes images, too rich, too fleeting and mysterious.
That first fritillary of several days ago must have been drunk on fresh bramble nectar. All the others are restless and nimble, far too quick. Bramble flowers are often interwoven with bracken, protected by a thorny barrier so I peer in from a distance. I like today's image of two fritillaries in pools of light and shadow. There were at least five but they didn't linger. Often, it's an impression left on the mind's -eye, a glimpse of colour and an elusive flight.
Once again, my thanks to Chris Winnick for an interpretation of fritillary behaviour. I know more of the relationship of bees and flowers, of bees as pollinators. As for butterflies, this hot weather is an enchantment and a study.
That first fritillary of several days ago must have been drunk on fresh bramble nectar. All the others are restless and nimble, far too quick. Bramble flowers are often interwoven with bracken, protected by a thorny barrier so I peer in from a distance. I like today's image of two fritillaries in pools of light and shadow. There were at least five but they didn't linger. Often, it's an impression left on the mind's -eye, a glimpse of colour and an elusive flight.
Once again, my thanks to Chris Winnick for an interpretation of fritillary behaviour. I know more of the relationship of bees and flowers, of bees as pollinators. As for butterflies, this hot weather is an enchantment and a study.
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