Two more lovelies

08 Wednesday Aug 2018

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British butterflies, butterflies, butterfly, Clouded yellow, Colias croceus, Lasiommata megera, Wall brown, Wall butterfly

As I mentioned in yesterday’s post, last Sunday’s birding didn’t only produce some nice bird sightings, it also featured an abundance of beautiful butterflies, including two newbies for me.

I’ve been keeping an eye out for Clouded yellows (Colias croceus) for a couple of months now, as these immigrants can fly in from the southern parts of Europe and even north Africa as early as June. The occasional sighting has been reported in my area, with one being seen at Lavernock as recently as last Friday, but I hadn’t managed to spot one myself … until last Sunday.

180808 clouded yellows (3)

Ace birder Gareth spotted the first as we walked along the coastal path at Rumney Great Wharf, on the eastern side of Cardiff, and then a second was spotted soon afterwards. And then, as we retraced our steps back to the starting point of our walk, I spied two more, obviously a male and female engaged in their pre-mating aerial display. Luckily, their focus on mating meant I was able to get some open-wing photos, which, though not particularly sharp, are quite difficult with this butterfly, as it usually zooms along at quite a rate of knots.

180808 wall (1)

The second butterfly, which was again spotted by Gareth, was a first-ever sighting for me. This is a Wall (Lasiommata megera, until recently called a Wall brown), so named because of its liking for sunning itself on rocks, banks and, you guessed it, walls (though this one was not living up to its name!).

This particular Wall had been in the wars and was missing half of one wing and a third of the other, but was still flying well enough. I’m not sure I would have spotted it myself as, in flight, it looked very much like a small Meadow brown or a Gatekeeper, so I’m particularly grateful for Gareth’s sharp eyes.

I’ve had a fabulous summer of butterfly sightings, with my species total now on 34, but will these two be the final two species I see for 2018? Only time will tell.

The Painted Ladies

06 Monday Aug 2018

Posted by sconzani in insects, nature

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British butterflies, butterflies, butterfly, migrating butterlies, Painted Lady

A google search on “Painted Ladies” will take you to San Francisco, as this is the name used by Americans to describe the local Victorian and Edwardian buildings, particularly houses, that have been repainted in multiple colours to highlight the details of their architectural style.

180806 painted lady (2)

Britain’s Painted ladies have also been painted in multiple colours but not by human hands – these are the masterpieces of Mother Nature.

180806 painted lady (3)

And they are not static – they fly, and not just around our local meadows and gardens – these beauties fly all the way from North Africa and the Middle East to dazzle us with their kaleidoscope of colour.

180806 painted lady (4)

Some years – 2009 was one – these butterflies arrive in huge numbers – and I do mean huge. That summer, tens of millions of Painted ladies arrived in Britain and the skies were filled with fluttering colour. I hope I live to see such a sight.

180806 painted lady (1)

The flower of the moment is …

03 Friday Aug 2018

Posted by sconzani in flowers, insects, nature, wildflowers

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British butterflies, British wildflowers, butterflies, Common fleabane, fleabane, insects on fleabane, Lavernock Nature Reserve, Pulicaria dysenterica

The flower of the moment is Fleabane (Pulicaria dysenterica) or, at least it is at Lavernock Nature Reserve.

180803 fleabane

I’ve read that Fleabane usually grows in ditches and damp meadows so, despite the recent drought conditions, I guess there must be water somewhere below the wildflower meadows at Lavernock, as they are currently awash with these bright golden flowers. And, at a time when most other wildflowers have dried up and died off, the Fleabane is providing a much-needed source of pollen and nectar for butterflies and other assorted mini-beasties.

Birding at RSPB Dungeness

31 Tuesday Jul 2018

Posted by sconzani in birds, insects, nature

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birding, birdwatching, British birds, British butterflies, Common tern, Egyptian Goose, Emperor dragonfly, RSPB Dungeness, Snipe, Wood sandpiper

I had never been to RSPB Dungeness until my visit with my friend Jill two weeks ago but, if you can get past the fact that there’s a nuclear power station buzzing away just down the road, then you should be able to appreciate what a wonderful place it is. (British people seem to take nuclear power stations for granted but, as a nuclear-free New Zealander, I still find them quite scary places and really rather menacing!)

180731 Dungeness nuclear power station 180731 RSPB Dungeness

This is a unique landscape of low rolling shingle banks, interspersed with patchy areas of low scrub and large shallow pools – it’s water bird heaven!

180731 Common terns (3)

Our first highlight was seeing the Common terns that breed at Dungeness. Terns are such agile flyers and to see their young fledglings was a real treat.

180731 Egyptian geese

Eqyptian geese have also bred here, and we saw a pair with two well-grown goslings.

180731 snipe

I had my best-ever views of a Snipe that decided to come out and poke around the muddy edges of one of the pools. These are normally such secretive birds so it was a real pleasure to watch this bird foraging.

180731 wood sandpiper

And the Snipe was joined by not one but two Wood sandpipers.

180731 water birds galore

Each of the six hides on the two-mile-long main trail offers different views, different birds, and, after motoring down to a cafe near the lighthouse (and that power station), we also stopped off on our return to check out the two shorter trails and hides on the opposite side of the road. Here we had good, though distant views of a Greenshank and a Bar-tailed godwit. Cracking!

As well as the birds, the wildflowers added lots of pretty colour to our wander, and we were entertained as we walked by large numbers of beautiful butterflies and debonaire dragonflies, though it wasn’t quite so pleasant watching an Emperor dragon biting the wings off a Gatekeeper.

180731 b emperor

Here’s my bird list for the day (not including a lot of smaller birds that were flitting about the bushes while I was marvelling at the butterflies): Teal, Lesser black-backed gull, Tufted duck, Mallard, Herring gull, Common tern (with young), Cormorant, Sandwich tern, Common sandpiper, Wood sandpiper (2), Snipe, Egyptian goose (and goslings), Ringed plover, Pochard, Little grebe, Great crested grebe, Lapwing,Coot, Dunlin, Goldeneye, Reed warbler, Redshank, Woodpigeon, Oystercatcher, Grey heron, Great white egret (2), Greylag goose, Mute swan, Black-headed gull, Shelduck, Shoveler, Carrion crow, Swallow, House martin, Greenshank, Bar-tailed godwit, Pied wagtail, Gadwall and Magpie.

Big butterfly count

29 Sunday Jul 2018

Posted by sconzani in insects, nature

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Big Butterfly Count, British butterflies, butterflies, butterfly, butterfly conservation, count butterflies, help the butterflies

Just before we move away from this week of butterfly blogs, I do want to put in a plug for Butterfly Conservation’s Big Butterfly Count that is happening right now. It runs from 20 July to 12 August, so there’s still plenty of time to join in, and it’s super easy. Even if you’re not too crash hot on identifying butterflies, I’m sure you can count from one to, say, twenty, and there’s a handy pictorial chart you can easily download to help you work out which flutterby is which. And, for the smartphoners, which is probably most of you, there’s even a handy app you can download to help identify and record your sightings – though I do think you should at least try to work them out for yourselves.

OLYMPUS DIGITAL CAMERA

And if you won’t take my word for the fact that it’s a truly wonderful feeling to sit quietly somewhere and watch and count butterflies, then maybe you’ll listen to / watch Sir David Attenborough.

Singing the Chalk hill blues

28 Saturday Jul 2018

Posted by sconzani in insects, nature

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British butterflies, butterflies, butterflies of Sussex, Chalk hill blue, Chalkhill blue, Polyommatus coridon, Seaford Head Local Nature Reserve

This is the last of the seven new butterflies I saw during my seven days in Sussex and the second from my walk around Seaford Head (see yesterday’s blog for the first). This stunner used to be known as the Chalkhill blue and is now the Chalk hill blue – I haven’t been able to find out why the change was made but the name does indicate their preferred location, the grasslands found on the chalk hills and downs of southern England. (Its scientific name, Polyommatus coridon, hasn’t changed.)

180728 Chalk Hill blue (1)

Luckily, the two butterflies I saw were both males – I say luckily because the female looks an awful lot like a Brown argus / Common blue female, and we all know how tricky those are to distinguish.

180728 Chalk Hill blue (2)

Apparently, these stunning males are often seen in large numbers, many hundreds together, flying low over vegetation in search of females. What a glorious sight that would be!

180728 Chalk hill blue (3)

Small and blue

27 Friday Jul 2018

Posted by sconzani in insects, nature

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Britain’s smallest butterfly, British butterflies, butterflies, Cupido minimus, Seaford Head Local Nature Reserve, Small blue, Small blue butterfly

Nine days ago, when I was staying with my friend Jill in East Sussex, we decided to re-enact a walk we had done on 12 May 2017, a wildlife walk led by Michael Blencowe of the Sussex Wildlife Trust, an expert lepidopterist and co-author of The Butterflies of Sussex.

May 2017, looking from Hope Bottom on Seaford Head towards the Seven Sisters

On that previous occasion the day was cool, windy and sometimes wet so we didn’t see any butterflies. This time Britain was in the grip of a scorching heatwave so it was almost too hot and dry for butterflies….

I didn’t quite match the framing but this is the same view in July 2017

Almost, but not quite. As luck would have it, I managed to spot two more new butterflies this day, and I almost missed the first as it was so tiny. This is the very appropriately named Small blue (Cupido minimus), Britain’s smallest butterfly and one that is becoming increasingly scarce.

180727 Small blue (2)

These lovelies are often found in small colonies, in areas of scrub and grassland near where their food plant grows. I don’t recall seeing any Kidney vetch (Anthyllis vulneraria) during our walk through the Seaford Head Local Nature Reserve but, luckily for the Small blue and for me, it must have been there.

180727 Small blue (1)

Flying on the wings of confusion

26 Thursday Jul 2018

Posted by sconzani in insects, nature

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Aricia agestis, British butterflies, Brown argus, butterflies, Common blue, Common blue butterfly, confusing butterflies, Polyommatus icarus

In yesterday’s blog I mentioned my confusion in identifying the Brown argus butterfly. Here’s why, plus some tips on how to defuse that confusion.

One of these butterflies is a Brown argus (Aricia agestis), the other five are female Common blues (Polyommatus icarus). Can you spot the odd one out?

180726 confusing butterflies underwings (1)

180726 confusing butterflies underwings (2)

180726 confusing butterflies underwings (3)

180726 confusing butterflies underwings (4)

180726 confusing butterflies underwings (5)

180726 confusing butterflies underwings (6)

If you have keen eyes, you will have noticed a difference in the patterns of spots of the butterfly in the last photo, which is the Brown argus. The Common blues all have an extra spot on their forewings (below right) and, on their hind wings, the two spots on the leading edge are more spaced out than those of the Brown argus – its two spots have been described as being close to a ‘figure of eight’ shape (below left).

180726 underwing patterns

Now, let’s look at the open wing patterns, which I find even trickier. Two of these butterflies are Brown argus, four are Common blue females. Which are which?

180726 confusing butterflies open wings (1)

180726 confusing butterflies open wings (2)

180726 confusing butterflies open wings (3)

180726 confusing butterflies open wings (4)

180726 confusing butterflies open wings (5)

180726 confusing butterflies open wings (6)

Firstly, as you can no doubt see, the amount of blue on Common blue females is very variable and that alone cannot help you identify them, as the Brown argus can also have a slight blue sheen to its wings sometimes. What I have found is that there is much less, sometimes no white colouration below the orange markings on the lower wings of the Brown argus (below left) and, though the Common blue can show a slight dark spot in the middle of its forewings (below right), that spot is much less obvious than the Brown argus’s spot.

180726 open wing patterns

So, did you work out which was which in the open wing photos? The middle butterfly in each row (photos two and five) are the Brown argus butterflies. Top marks if you spotted them!

Brown argus

25 Wednesday Jul 2018

Posted by sconzani in insects, nature

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Aricia agestis, British butterflies, Brown argus, butterflies, confusing species of butterflies, Cosmeston Lakes Country Park, Cuckmere Valley, RSPB Dungeness

When I spotted this little Brown argus butterfly (Aricia agestis) in the RSPB reserve at Dungeness in Kent, I thought it was a first for me, but I was wrong.

180724 Brown argus Dungeness

It turns out I had actually seen one two days earlier during a walk along ancient footpaths in the Cuckmere Valley in East Sussex, but I hadn’t realised until I’d had a really good look at my photos.

180724 Brown argus CuckmereValley

And then, when I got home and rechecked the photos on my computer of another very similar butterfly, it turned out that I had actually seen my very first Brown argus at Cosmeston, my local country park, back in August 2017.

180724 Brown argus Cosmeston

Why was I so confused? Check back in tomorrow and I’ll show you.

White admirals

24 Tuesday Jul 2018

Posted by sconzani in insects, nature

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Abbot's Wood, British butterflies, butterflies, Limenitis camilla, White admiral

These lovely creatures, White admirals (Limenitis camilla), were the fourth new species of butterfly I saw while on holiday in East Sussex last week, and the third new species we found at Abbot’s Wood, a lovely Forestry Commission woodland near Polegate that we chose for a walk primarily because the towering trees would provide shelter from the burning sun. Little did we realise what wonders lay within!

180724 white admiral (1)

I knew this was a new-to-me species when I saw it gliding low along the woodland path in front of me, as I’d not seen a butterfly flying like that before. This first White admiral was rather tatty looking, with much of its lower wings missing. Was it a poor flyer or had it been tangling with other butterflies in the hunt for a mate?

180724 white admiral (2)

Almost immediately we saw a second White admiral and, though this one had a small nick out of one wing, it was in much better overall condition and seemed quite happy to sit and pose for photos. These glorious butterflies live mostly in southern Britain, in mature woodland where there is an abundance of their caterpillar food plant, the Honeysuckle (Lonicera periclymenum).