Mike's Natural Musings: Butterflies

Showing posts with label Butterflies. Show all posts

Sunday, 28 July 2024

Finally a Good Butterfly Day.

We have enjoyed warm sunny weather now for a couple of weeks and at last I have managed to get a walk around the cemetery, woodland burial ground and the adjacent Horsefield or Gooseman's Field just a 5 minute walk from our suburban cul de sac. I was delighted to find good numbers of butterflies on the wing with 12 species in total. The best find was an essex skipper, very difficult to differentiate from the much more common small skipper, the best identifying difference being the tips of the antennae. In the essex they are all black and appear to have been dipped in black ink whereas the small has back/orange tips. This is very difficult to see except in a photograph so a problem when one the wing.

Comma

Gatekeeper

Green-veined White

Meadow Brown

Peacock

Essex Skipper

Small Skipper

Small Tortoiseshell

Speckled Wood

Wednesday, 24 July 2024

At Last Some Sun and Warmth Encourages the Insects.

With the advent of some warm sunny weather at last, butterflies have started to appear, albeit in small numbers. I have begun to see butterflies in the garden now with Large and small whites appearing along with green-veined white, red admiral, peacock, speckled wood and holly blue. In the cemetery I have seen 1 large and 2 small white, 4 speckled woods and 3 gatekeepers. It's nice to be seeing them but worrying that early there were virtually none and now only small numbers. This is partly due to habitat and larval food plant loss and this year, particularly, climate change which has brought a very wet winter and spring with the weather only recently beginning to improve.

Gatekeeper, cemetery.

Saturday, 29 July 2023

More from the Garden and Some from Gooseman's Field.

Despite being very windy, especially on The Horsefield which made photography challenging, it was a warm day with temperatures up to 22C. I was delighted to find peacock in both locations; my first for a while.

Garden

Gatekeeper

Green-veined white

Holly Blue

Peacock

Gooseman's Field

Common Blue

Gatekeeper

Small Skipper

Meadow Brown

Thursday, 21 July 2022

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

Monday, 13 June 2022

Orchids, Butterflies and Close Encounter with a Fox.

Aware that I wasn't alone, I looked up to see a fox only yards away watching me inquisitively but with caution. It had found a sunny spot in a sea buckthorn clearing and was indulging in a spot of sunbathing. It was quite happy to watch me and didn't seem to see me as a threat until I moved slightly to try and get a better view when it retreated into the undergrowth and continued to study me from the security of the thorns. It was an absolute joy to experience this close encounter.

I had decided to have a walk through the dunes at Cleethorpes to check out the orchids and to do a butterfly and bird count. I had been full of doom and gloom when I was last here earlier in the year when the scene was one of devastation. Scrub clearance, as part of Lincolnshire's Dynamic Dunscape Project, had been undertaken leaving the area not looking its best. However my despondency had been totally misplaced as the dunes were looking stunning and the orchids perhpaps better than ever. There are two main types of orchid here: common spotted and southern marsh and also their hybrids. As if the identification of some of our orchids was not difficult enough, some species have a habit of cross-pollinating with each other to produce hybrids. These hybrids are often fertile and can continue to cross not only with each other, but also back cross with either of the parents. The result is a 'hybrid swarm', where a population at a single site can show more or less a full spectrum of intermediates from one original parent to the other. Marsh and spotted orchids seem most prone to this behaviour and their hybrids are usually a tall and stately plant with a large number of flowers in the spike. This happens here in Cleethorpes Dunes but also at Saltfleetby/Theddlethorpe NNR. A challenge to identify they may be, but in Cleethorpes Dunes they make a tremendous display.

As well as my encounter with the fox and the enjoyment of the orchids I found 25 bird species and 8 butterfly species so, an excellent afternoon.

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Cleethorpes Dunes

Common Spotted orchid/Southern Marsh hybrid

Fox

Meadow Brown

Small Tortoiseshell

Monday, 23 August 2021

There Be Dragons

Despite a good weather forecast our first lap of Messingham Sand Quarry LWT reserve was chilly and somewhat gloomy. Although we did manage to find a few beasties there were no large dragonflies on the wing. I had met Roger and Kevin in the car park at 8.30. It was good to catch up with each other as we had not met up for months, part Covid and part other commitments. By the time we had completed our first circuit it was time for something to eat during which time the sun came out and our next two laps were in ideal conditions. In fact I should have take my wellies off; it was like walking with my legs in a sauna. I record my walks on the Strava app and it is fascinating to not how much water there is at Messingham when seen on a map.

We had seen one or two butterflies earlier but now the sun was out they were much more noticeable especially the brimstones nectaring on one particular area of scabious and purple loosestrife. Peacocks and red admirals were irresistibly drawn to the soft pink flower heads of hemp agrimony. As well as good numbers of common blue damselflies there were now large dragons on the wing: quite a few migrant hawkers and one or two southern hawkers. The most common were the brown hawkers but they do what it says on the tin: spend all their time hawking for prey and only rarely perching up at all. Although I managed shots of migrant and southern the browns eluded me.

A highlight of the day was the large numbers of quite approachable lizards out basking in the sun, which, even if disturbed soon returned to a favoured spot. Quite a few young ones about too which is good news. Also on the dragonfly front there were plenty of the smaller darters about, mainly common but also a few ruddies.

It was good to come across a very large hoverfly, Volucella zonaria, busitly feeding on scabious.

A good day was had and very pleasant to catch up with friends after such a long time.

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