Butterflies and Dragons on the Coast and in the Wolds

It has been very warm today with a slight breeze.  I decided to go down to Saltfleetby NNR at Rimac to see if there were any dragonflies about as well as butterflies.  Rimac was ablaze with flowers: birds foot trefoil or eggs and bacon, vipers bugloss, swathes of ladies bedstraw and froths of meadow sweet.  On the orchid front marsh helleborine was plentiful on the freshwater marsh and pyramid and marsh orchids were abundant.

On walking around the pond I enjoyed watching numerous four spotted chaser dragonflies performing aerial displays over the water as they hunted for prey, although they were far too active to photograph.  Just as numerous around the pond and elsewhere on the reserve were ruddy darter dragonflies; a much smaller species and, in the case of the male which is a rich red with striking black legs, much more colourful.  Butterflies were also very active in large numbers: ringlets, skippers both large and small, meadow brown, gatekeeper and occasional common blues.  Last year and this have been the best years for butterflies for a long while, although common blues remain quite scarce.  Our garden has had quite a few new species this year: comma, meadow brown and gatekeeper.

From Rimac I drove on into the Wolds to visit my winter feeding station site.  One of my favourite spots where I record observations of the wood and have my bird feeding station in the winter.  The front meadow is special here; it has never been treated with herbicide and has not been under the plough since WWII and is one of the few chalk downland meadows remaining in the Wolds.  
I first popped into the old victorian walled garden where, last year, I found comma and small copper butterflies, and then went into the front meadow.  And what a sight.  It is awash with flowers and lush grasses waving in the warm breeze.Birds foot trefoil, ladies bedstraw, clover and bladder campion provided most of the spectacle and one of my favourite plants, knapweed, is just coming into flower; this, too is an attractive plant for butterflies.  Butterflies on the wing included both large and green veined whites, numerous meadow browns, ringlet, gatekeeper, large and small skipper, small heath and burnet moth.
As I wandered in the meadow the plaintive mewing of one of the resident buzzards could be heard calling to the young still on the nest.  I also heard today that there are young barn owls in one of the barns on the farm so that's very exciting news.