Tag Archives: British butterflies

A day in Tiddesley Wood

10 Thursday Jul 2025

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My main aim for my little trip to Cheltenham was to try to see my first ever Purple emperor butterfly: I failed. Yet, in spite of that failure, and the late afternoon train chaos (caused by a fault at Birmingham New Street station) that meant I arrived back at my guest house almost two hours later than planned, I had the most wonderful day in Tiddesley Wood in Worcestershire.

The reason this was such a wonderful day was the sheer abundance of butterflies I saw in this woodland, an abundance that has been very sadly lacking in recent years at the various locations I visit in south Wales. The first treat was getting very good views of several White admirals as they were gliding along the woodland rides. (The previous week I’d been to Slade Wood, in Gwent, the only local place I can find this species and seen two, but only distantly and fleetingly.)

The second source of delight was the profusion of Silver-washed fritillaries living in the wood. These are big showy butterflies, the largest of Britain’s fritillaries, and they thrive in the wide wildflower-filled rides of woodlands like Tiddesley. The only location where I’d ever seen such a large quantity before was on a visit to Lower Woods Nature Reserve in south Gloucestershire back in 2019 so I was in butterfly heaven watching them at Tiddesley.

And then there were the ‘ordinary’ butterflies, like this handsome little Brown argus, a gang of which were patrolling small territories along the edges of the rides.

And this stunning Painted lady that flew right to my feet, as if to insist that it was also worthy of a photograph. I was happy to oblige.

For those interested, the total butterfly species list for the day was 19. They were: Ringlet, Meadow brown, Speckled wood, Gatekeeper, Small skipper, Large skipper, Brown argus, Small white, Large white, Green-veined white, Marbled white, Brimstone, Red admiral, Comma, Peacock, Small copper, Painted lady, White admiral, and Silver-washed fritillary. I may have missed out on seeing my first Purple emperor but I headed home smiling after a magical day in the woods.

An exuberance of Marbled whites

08 Tuesday Jul 2025

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The first full day of last week’s mini break, based in Cheltenham, was forecast to be the hottest day of the year so far so, rather than catch a train to one of the nearby locations I was planning to visit, I decided to stay in the Cheltenham area. I still ended up red-faced and sweaty after a six-hour eight-mile walk up and down and around Leckhampton Hill and Charlton Kings Common but what a fabulous day it was! As well as 13 other species of butterfly, I saw more Marbled whites than I’ve ever seen in my life before. I stopped counting at 50; they were everywhere, especially on the Knapweed flowers, which seemed to be their favourite nectar source.

As I didn’t take many landscape photos during this walk, I’ve included in my little slide show a few images from the last time I walked this way, in early June 2023, just to show you something of this beautiful place. You can see how much browner everything is this year after all our hot weather and with little rain to water the plants. It was a magical day!

The Gatekeeper and the Painted lady

04 Friday Jul 2025

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During the three days from to 25 to 28 June I saw six new species of butterfly: Gatekeeper, White-letter hairstreak, Essex skipper, White admiral, Silver-washed fritillary and Painted lady. Seeing so many in such a short time was an amazing experience, and I thoroughly enjoyed the time I spent watching each and every one of them.

Disappointingly, the only ones I can show you reasonable images of are the Gatekeeper (above) and the Painted lady (below).

The other species were either flitting around high in the tree tops (White-letter hairstreak), paused for the briefest of moments on some flowers before disappearing in to the farm field behind (Essex skipper), weren’t stopping for a moment in their endless quest for a female (a Silver-washed fritillary exits stage left), or weren’t stopping at all ever (not even a blurry photo of the two White admirals I saw).

Large whites and parasitism, part 2

24 Tuesday Jun 2025

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A week after my sighting of Large white butterfly larvae that had been parasitised by wasps (see yesterday’s blog post) I returned to the same location to see what might have changed during that time and was surprised to see six pupae, beautiful sculptural objects whose markings varied depending on how long it was since they had pupated. These can’t have been the parasitised larvae I don’t think, so there must have been a large number of larvae munching unnoticed in the grassy area below the signage they were on.

This time, as well as these pupae, a few parasitised larvae and a few caterpillars that looked normal but may still have had wasp larvae in their bodies, there was a new species of parasitic wasp in residence. They looked completely different to the wasp I’d seen the previous week and, rather than the larvae, these tiny wasps were all congregating around the Large white pupae.

As usual, I took a lot of photos and, when I got home, set about researching the possibilities. This time, my guide book offered no assistance but googling produced one probable answer. There exists a wasp that is actually named the White butterfly pupal parasitoid wasp, scientific name Pteromalus puparum, which seems the likely culprit, though this hasn’t yet been confirmed by any experts. I’m intending to revisit the site to see what’s happened while I’ve been away on my little holiday.

Large whites and parasitism, part 1

23 Monday Jun 2025

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Though I’ve been in Wales almost 10 years and was fascinated by British butterflies even before I settled here, I only saw my first Large white caterpillars in June last year. So, when I spotted several more on the large advertising signage fencing off a local building site, I was delighted … until I looked more closely (and just a warning, this is a bit gruesome!).

The larvae were surrounded by small yellow cocoons and, when I looked even closer, I could see small yellowish larvae squirming between the bodies of the caterpillars and the cocoons. It is highly likely that the Large whites have been parasitised by the wasp Cotesia glomerata. In Life Cycles of British & Irish Butterflies, Peter Eeles writes that the wasp

deposits between 15 and 80 eggs inside each young larva that it parasitizes. The wasp larvae feed on the layer of fat beneath the skin of their host, thereby avoiding vital organs, and, when their host is fully grown, break through the skin and pupate within yellow cocoons on or near their host.

If this wasn’t gruesome enough for one morning’s finds, I then noticed a tiny wasp amongst the cocoons. At first, I thought it must be one of the Cotesia glomerata that had hatched, but no. When I checked at home later, a quick internet image search revealed that this did not resemble C. glomerata and, on Wikipedia, I found the information that C. glomerata is itself parasitised by a couple of other wasp species, Lysibia nana [it is listed as L. nanus in British taxonomic listings] and Gelis agilis. I’ve just been reading that the female G. agilis is wingless so I’m wondering if the wasp I saw is L. nanus. As this species is rarely recorded and there are no Welsh records, I’ve sent a query to the parasitic wasp expert at the Natural History Museum; I’ll update this post if/when I get an answer.

**UPDATE** This is the response I received from Dr Gavin Broad from the Natural History Museum: ‘You are correct, your wasps are most probably Lysibia nanus. There is a very similar species, Lysibia tenax, more rarely recorded but with much the same hosts. I don’t believe it is actually a separate species and L. nanus is certainly the usual suspect reared from Cotesia glomerata cocoons.’

The Marbled white and the Skylark

21 Saturday Jun 2025

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Today’s blog title puts me in mind of one of Aesop’s fables. I’m sure there was one where the butterfly was tired and asked the bird if it could ride on its back but the bird ended up eating it? Just kidding! Before I sign off from my blogs about my Weymouth trip I just wanted to share two more random moments …

The Marbled white butterfly (Melanargia galathea), though common in many parts of Britain, is rarely seen in my part of coastal south Wales, so it was a special treat to see three on the wing in Weymouth. The first was a distant blur in a field in the Wildlife Trust reserve Lorton Meadows, an area that looked like it would have good potential for butterflies and wildflowers if it wasn’t for the excessive number of off-lead dogs being allowed to roam everywhere, even into the one dragonfly pond. Fortunately, Portland’s Tout Quarry came up trumps again, and I saw two more Marbled whites there, including this obliging beauty.

Seeing this stunning Skylark up close was another of this trip’s special moments. I was walking back from Portland to Weymouth and had almost reached the information centre at Chesil Beach when I heard Skylark song in front of me. I searched the sky for a couple of minutes before realising that the bird was, in fact, sitting on a bush adjacent to the track directly ahead of me.

Such a singing spot seemed odd but I wondered if there might be a nest in the scrubby area I was walking through and so this male was trying to distract me from going near that. Though I had never intended to move off the path, its tactic certainly focused my attention, and I grabbed a few photos before walking onward.

Lifer: Lulworth skipper

16 Monday Jun 2025

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This was another new-to-me butterfly, the Lulworth skipper (Thymelicus acteon), and this was the butterfly that I really hoped to see during my visit to Weymouth. Clearly, I was not disappointed.

This was another find in the sculpture park that is Tout Quarry on the Isle of Portland, and I saw my first Lulworth skipper almost as soon as I arrived. At first glance, they could easily be mistaken for Small skippers, but Lulworths are slightly smaller and generally darker, often turning an olive-brown colour as they age. The females also have a series of golden marks that form a notable circle on their wings, though that didn’t help me. As is common amongst butterfly species, the males emerge first, and I saw no females.

However, by sheer good luck, I also spotted my first Small skipper of the year as I explored Tout Quarry, which proved a very good comparison for the Lulworths I was seeing. I’ve included a photo of the two species below; this is not precise as to their size relationship but does, hopefully, give some idea of their colour differences (Lulworth on the left, Small skipper on the right).

The Lulworth skipper is named after the Dorset town of Lulworth, where it was first found in 1832. Though these butterflies have expended their range a little in the intervening 190 years, they are still only found in locations along the south Dorset coast. I had expected to have to catch a bus to Lulworth until I read the butterflies could be found on Portland, and I booked my little break away as soon as I heard they were on the wing. So, it was a real treat to find them so quickly and easily, and then to spend perhaps 90 minutes in the quarry, enjoying all the butterfly species, the local plants, and, yes, I did also look at the stone sculptures.

Lifer: Silver-studded blue

14 Saturday Jun 2025

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I’ve just returned from four wonderful nights in Weymouth, on England’s south coast, my days full of walking and wildlife. I may see a lot of wildlife where I live but part of the reason for my recent house move was so that I could afford to have a few short breaks away to explore new areas and see different wildlife while I still have the energy and mobility to do that, and also while being as low-carbon as possible in the process, of course, so travelling by train and/or bus and with a lot of walking as well. So, there will be a few blogs in the next week or so, covering some of the things I saw while away.

First up, in an old disused quarry on the Isle of Portland, were my first ever Silver-studded blue butterflies (Plebejus argus). The ‘silver-studded’ part of the name comes from the way the light is reflected off the light blue scales on the underside of the adults’ hindwings, making them shimmer like silver. And the ‘argus‘ epithet in its scientific name is a nod to the multi-eyed shepherd of Greek mythology, a reference to the spots on the undersides of the wings.

Silver-studded blues are rare and only seen in a few isolated areas around the southern coast of England, in Pembrokeshire and around the Great Orme in Wales, and in a couple of coastal locations in Norfolk and Suffolk. From those locations, you can perhaps guess that they prefer heathland, sand-dune systems and limestone grassland, in particular sheltered sunny spots where their companions, the black Lasius ant species, thrive. As is seen in several butterfly species, ants provide the butterflies with protection from insect predators throughout their life cycle.

Tout quarry provides the perfect environment for the Silver-studded blues. Quarrying has hollowed out large areas of ground, making it a sun trap and leaving stony areas where specialist wildflower species have managed to seed and flourish, though the vegetation does have to be managed to ensure the more aggressive plant species don’t overwhelm large areas of ground.

I was extremely lucky with the timing of my trip as these butterflies had only just emerged in the few days prior to my arrival, and that’s why I only saw the vibrant blue male butterflies; the females are brown on both the upper- and undersides of their wings. To see them is the perfect incentive for a return trip!

Grassland pearls

07 Saturday Jun 2025

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Wednesday’s weather wasn’t the best for trying to find butterflies – a constant westerly wind was keeping the temperatures low even when the sun did manage to peak out from behind the constant parade of big clouds rolling through, but my friend Shar’s optimism proved well founded.

Though even her sharp eyes didn’t manage to spot any Marsh fritillaries (as they seem to have emerged early everywhere this year, we were probably too late for them at this site), we did find a few gorgeous Small pearl-bordered fritillaries (Boloria selene), the species I was really hoping to see that day. Initially, we thought we had two but on checking my photos at home later, I realised from the wing markings that we’d actually seen three.

As usual, we were conducting our butterfly hunt in the habitat most favoured by these fritillaries, the damp grasslands of the Aberbargoed Grasslands National Nature Reserve, where the butterflies particularly enjoy flowers like common violets and bluebells, Marsh thistles and Ragged robin. The reserve is also home to a large population of orchids, both Common and Heath spotted-orchids, as well as Cross-leaved heath, Tormentil, Devil’s-bit scabious and Knapweed, amongst other wildflower species, making a wander around its fields a pleasure even when you don’t see very many butterflies.

A skipper surprise

23 Friday May 2025

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You could’ve knocked me over with the draft from a butterfly’s wing when this gorgeous creature flitted up from the foliage to greet me as I walked the coastal path on Tuesday. Large skippers don’t usually appear locally until early June but our lengthy spell of warm dry weather is having a very obvious effect on insect emergence times this year.