A Big Butterfly Count

 A warm walk around the Woodland Burial Ground today to carry out a Big Butterfly Count for Butterfly Conservation.  Despite seeming quiet with few on the wing and the fact that the council have flailed the vegetation on the path around the ouside, I had a reasonable count: Large White 4, Speckled Wood 6, Small White 2, Meadow Brown 3, Gatekeeper 3, Red Admiral 1 and Peacock 1.  There also a few dragonflies present but sadly not settling: Common Darter and Migrant Hawker.

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Large White

Meadow Brown

Red Admiral

Speckled Wood

More Butterfly Counting .

 Having had a cool and windy session on The Horsefield last week I was keen to do a count in better conditions.  All worked well on the Horsefield but by the time I reached the Woodland Burial Ground it had clouded over and turned cooler.  Overall, though the weather was ideal: warm when the sun was out at 20C and a gentle breeze.  I was delighted to find 96 individuals of 11 species plus an, as yet, unidentified moth, 7 common darters and 1 migrant hawker. It was satisfying to find a painted lady and a small copper, both in pristine condition.  Sadly I couldn't get near the painted lady.  Two copulating common blues had their minds on other things and allowed a very close approach.

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Common Blue, Male

Common Blue, pair

Common Blue, pair

Unidentified moth

Unidentified moth

Small Copper

 

Small Copper

Small Copper

Small Copper

Small Copper

Small Copper

Small White

Small White

A New Butterfly.

 Over the weekend we visited Heather's brother in Ashwell in Hertfordshire to help celebrate Maureen's retirement.  Knowing that there was a strong colony of chalkhill blue butterflies on Therfield Heath just outside Royston I was keen to explore as July is in the height of their flight period. The heath is a nature reserve and site of special scientific interest on the chalk escarpment near Royston.  Although there is a golf course it is common land and sheep are still grazed there.  I managed to squeeze in two visits: one on Sunday morning with Malcolm and Maureen and one with Heather on Monday morning 'on the way home'!  On both occasions it was warm but very windy making photography very difficult. The blues were easy to find being right next to the car park and on the Monday I counted over 30 within an area only a few yards square.  As its name implies, this is a butterfly of chalk and limestone downland, to which it is restricted because the larval foodplant, horeshoe vetch, is similarly confined to this habitat.  The males are a lovely silver-blue whilst the females are brown as in common blues.  I was much take with the beautiful white heart-shaped mark on the underwing of both sexes.  In Britain it is restricted to southern England, south-east of a line from the Severn Estuary to the Wash

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Female

Male

Male

Male

Female

Male

Male

Butterfly Counting on the Horsefield and in the Woodland Burial ground.

 Finally the torrid temperatures of the previous few days cooled down and on 20th it only climbed to a mere 28C.  I grabbed the opportunity for a walk around the woodland burial ground and The Horsefield as I hadn't been for over three weeks.  I began in the Woodland Burial ground and then moved on into the Horsefield.  The sun was out and it was pleasantly warm in the cemetery but by the time I got to the Horsefield it had clouded over.  I was still able to count plenty of individuals  but they were not perching for photography.  It was good to be finding my first gatekeepers and ringlets of the year and I was pleased to find a mating pair of green-veined whites; I hadn't seen any at all for some time.

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Gatekeeper

Gatekeeper

Green-veined white

Ringlet

Speckled Wood

Speckled Wood

Butterflies in the Garden and a Heatwave.

 From Sunday 17the July to 21st July we experienced the highest temperatures this country has ever seen.  It began on Sunday with a maximum of 32C increasing to 37C on Monday.  The peak, however, was Thuesday when our weather station recorded 40.3C.  This same temperature was recorded at RAF Coningsby and Humberside airport, breaking the previous record of 38C from three years ago.  The nightime minimum broke all records as well and on the Tuesday/Wednesday minimum was 22C.  It was even warmer in the house and it was impossible to sllep that night.  Not only were temperatures incredibly high, there were wildfires throughout the country including the complete destruction of some houses.  One man had gone to help his neighbour fight a spontaneous combustion in his compost heap but it set fire to the fence, destroyed the garages and then the houses.  This is a taste of what could be to come if we do not get to grips with a heating world.  It is, at the moment, a rare occurrence for this country but common place now all over the worlf including much of Europe.

On the morning of the 18th, while it was still cool enough to go outside I managed to photograph a couple of butterflies: small white and gatekeeper.

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Gatekeeper

Small White

The Buck Supermoon

 With a friend Heather and I went out to try and photograph another supermoon; this one the Buck Moon, so called because this is the time of year when the deer's antlers are fully grown ready for the rut in Autumn.  This time we decided to go to the yacht club car park on the Fitties as, in theory, there would be an unimpeded view.  This would certainly have been the case had there not been a thick bank of cloud on the horizon.  We eventually gave the cloud best and went home hoping to photograph it later in the evening.  Unfortunately it did't climb very high in the sky and, even when it emerged from the clouds it remained hidden by trees.  The following night, however, I was awake at 3.30 and managed some shots through a gap in the trees.

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Edinburgh, July, Day 2

A perfect day of weather today, at last. 23C and almost constant sun.  We bgan the day with a walk along the sea front and a coffee outside in the sun followed by some window shopping.  Then followed a day of revisiting past haunts beginning with Musselburgh Scrapes, like going back home.  There were the usual suspects present: oystercatchers, redshank, lapwing, heron, mallard and shelduck.  We continued our journey to the Scottish Ornithological Centre at Aberlady where we saw an excellent exhibition of prints linked to the poetry of John Clare.  Revrsing our route we called at Longniddry beach for sea glass searching.  Thomas and I had had a good session here many years ago and it still turned up trumps.  We enjoyed sitting in the sun over a late lunch before a quick visit the the estuary of the tiny River Eske.  This was very rewarding with large numbers of eclipse plumage eider duck, curlew and oystercatchers.  I was delighted to find a small group of superb summer plumage bar-tailed godwit along with a flock of red breasted mergansers and a few common terns.

A great day.

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Edinburgh, July, Day 1

My final photography on Mull was last night when we searched out Tobermoray Cat is a local'stray' but although no-0ne admits ownership he has been adopted by everyone and features in to children's books about him.  He spends a fair amount of time at the Youth hostel recovering from his adventures and this is where we caught up with him relaxing in the common room.  Of course we had to buy a book from the bookshop next door.

In true Tour de France style, a transition stage today, but rather than moving from Denmark to France, in our case it is Mull to Edinburgh.  We woke to torrential rain which continued until we reached Killin and then things gradually improved until , in Edinburgh, we enjoyed a beautiful evening.  The high point of the journey as watching arctic terns fishing by the ferry terminal at Craignure and the ferry crossing itself.  The day concluded with a very pleasant walk along Portobello sea front watching beach volley ball and sea swimming.

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