214/366 Butterfly eggs

01 Saturday Aug 2020

Posted by sconzani in insects, nature, plants

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British butterflies, butterfly, butterfly egg, Common blue butterfly, Common blue butterfly egg, Painted Lady, Painted lady egg, thistle

This Painted lady is only the fourth individual I’ve seen this year but she was by far the best, not because of her appearance, which is a little ragged around the edges, but because she was laying eggs … and I’d never seen a Painted lady egg before.

200801 painted lady

At just 0.65mm high, the egg is tiny and, in my reference book, it’s described as green but, to my eye, this one is more of a pale turquoise – the plant stem is green. And the plant is a thistle – Creeping thistle, I think, though it was a young plant with no flowers, which makes it harder for me to identify but probably more nourishing for the teeny tiny caterpillar to munch on when it emerges. Now if I can only find this exact plant again in approximately a week’s time …

And following hot on the heels of finding that Painted lady egg, today I spotted a female Common blue butterfly laying her eggs in a sheltered clearing. You can perhaps see in the photo how she is angling her body to deposit an egg underneath the foliage.

200801 Common blue egg laying

So, once again, I was able to find the newly laid egg and take some photos. According to my book, these eggs are usually 0.5mm in diameter and just 0.25mm high, so really tiny. I have no chance of finding this egg again but I’m really glad I had the chance to see it.

200/366 Purple hairstreak

18 Saturday Jul 2020

Posted by sconzani in insects, nature, trees

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British butterflies, butterfly, butterfly in Oak trees, Cosmeston Lakes Country Park, Favonius quercus, Oak butterfly, oak tree, Purple hairstreak

The key to where to locate this gorgeous butterfly, the Purple hairstreak, is in its scientific name Favonius quercus – quercus is the genus of the Oak tree – and I suspect that there are many more colonies of Purple hairstreaks living in our old Oak trees than we currently know about, as these butterflies spend much of their time unseen, high in the leafy boughs, feasting on honey dew.

200718 purple hairstreak (2)

There is a colony at Lavernock, and I’ve seen these butterflies at a couple of locations along the road that leads to Lavernock Point, but they were the only local sites I knew about. So, you can perhaps imagine my delight when, during Thursday’s walk at Cosmeston Lakes Country Park, I came face to snout with a female Purple hairstreak, which had ventured down to head height, and was happily running her yellow proboscis over the honey-dew-covered leaves.

200718 purple hairstreak (1)

This was the closest I’d been to one of these lovely creatures and had previously seen neither the purple sheen on their open wings nor the yellow proboscis. I was in butterfly heaven!

200718 purple hairstreak (3)

199/366 A cycle of life and death

17 Friday Jul 2020

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British butterflies, butterfly, butterflying, cycle of life, Ringlet, Ringlets mating

I am constantly reminded of how transitory life can be for the smaller creatures that share our planet. Take, for instance, the Ringlet butterfly. The adults usually emerge in the second half of June and only a few survive into August. In their few short weeks of life they experience a frantic rush to reproduce …

200717 1 ringlets mating

… a time full of danger from pecking birds, of collisions with damaging foliage …

200717 2 ragged ringlet

… before death takes them – unless, like this rather ragged creature, they are caught in a spider’s web, die prematurely but, in so doing, give life to another creature.

200717 2 ringlet caught by spider

196/366 First Brown argus of 2020

14 Tuesday Jul 2020

Posted by sconzani in insects, nature

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British butterflies, Brown argus, butterfly, butterflying, Grangemoor Park

By this date last year, I had managed to find Brown argus butterflies at two different local sites (and one of those was the first Cardiff record in eight years). This year I only spotted my first Brown argus last Saturday, almost two months later than last year. The Polyommatinae family (that’s the blues and arguses) are not faring well in my part of south Wales this year, which is a great shame, as they are all gorgeous little butterflies.

200714 brown argus (1)

If you’re having trouble telling a Brown argus from a Common blue female, my blog Flying on the wings of Confusion, July 2018, has ID pointers and photos that should help.

200714 brown argus (2)

189/366 Keepers of the gate

07 Tuesday Jul 2020

Posted by sconzani in insects, nature

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British butterflies, butterfly, Gatekeeper, Pyronia tithonus

It’s a week since I spotted my first Gatekeepers of the year and, in the past seven days, I’ve seen them in several of my local walking places, though so far only males .

200707 gatekeeper (1)

They grab the wandering eye, as their bright orange pops from the vibrant green of the hedgerows and woodland rides, and in the long grass of fence lines and the gates that divide them.

200707 gatekeeper (2)

You can read more about these gorgeous butterflies in my previous blogs The Gatekeeper, July 2018, and Sexing Gatekeepers, July 2019.

200707 gatekeeper (3)

178/366 Essex skippers

26 Friday Jun 2020

Posted by sconzani in insects, nature

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British butterflies, butterfly, Essex skipper, Grangemoor Park, Skippers

I’ve been melting in this week’s heatwave but it’s been a wonderful week for butterflies: on Monday, a long-lost Small heath, on Wednesday my first Painted Lady of the year, and yesterday two Essex skippers.

200626 essex skipper (1)

I went early to Grangemoor Park to avoid the worst of the heat but it was already roasting, and the skippers, Large and Small, were scooting around the grasses and wildflowers so rapidly that I couldn’t get many photos. Then, along one path, two skippers flew up, one disappeared but the other found a perch and stayed there, most patiently, while I quietly edged my way around in front of it to check what I suspected from the rear view. And, bingo, black-tipped antennae – an Essex skipper.

200626 essex skipper (2)

A second path, an almost perfect repeat performance, a second Essex skipper. I do find these gorgeous little skippers will remain on a perch when they find one to their liking, which is extremely convenient for getting photos to confirm their identities.

177/366 A Small heath and a Painted lady

25 Thursday Jun 2020

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British butterflies, butterflies, butterfly, Painted Lady, Small heath

As well as the Great crested grebes I wrote about yesterday (and many other birds, of course), I also found a little treasure on Monday’s Cardiff Bay walk, a Small heath butterfly. These are common butterflies in many parts of Britain but, for some unknown reason, they are now rare in my part of south Wales. In almost five years of looking, this is the first I’ve found, and Monday’s find is only the third confirmed local record in ten years. Sadly, I only managed a couple of not-very-good photos so I’ll need to try to re-find it.

200625 small heath

Yesterday’s walk, in the meadows next to a local woodland, also produced a treasure. As well as many other butterflies (Meadow browns and Ringlets, Large and Small skippers, a couple each of Commas and Red admirals, a Speckled wood and a few flyby white species), I saw my first Painted lady of 2020. I love both the top and side markings of this beautiful creature.

200625 painted lady (1) 200625 painted lady (2)

168/366 Ringlets and a Small skipper

16 Tuesday Jun 2020

Posted by sconzani in insects, nature

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British butterflies, butterfly, Ringlet, Small skipper

Yesterday was a day of two firsts, my first sightings of (several) Ringlet butterflies for this year (and at two different locations), and my first gorgeous Small skipper as well. Here they are …

200616 ringlet (1) 200616 small skipper (2)

164/366 ‘Flowers that fly’

12 Friday Jun 2020

Posted by sconzani in insects, nature

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British butterflies, butterfly, Comma, Green-veined white, Large skipper, Meadow Brown, Speckled wood

‘… flowers that fly and all but sing’
~ from ‘Blue-butterfly Day’, a poem by Robert Frost

These are some of the ‘flowers’ that have been flying around me this week, causing my heart to sing.

Comma, one of three seen on Tuesday’s walk

Green-veined white

Large skipper, a butterfly with attitude

Meadow brown, from a count of 54 in a single meadow

Speckled wood

158/366 Britain’s most common butterfly

06 Saturday Jun 2020

Posted by sconzani in insects, nature

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British butterflies, butterfly, Maniola jurtina, Maniola jurtina insularis, Meadow Brown

The latest butterfly species to grace the fields in my area is the Meadow brown (Maniola jurtina). I actually saw my first on Monday but it’s taken a few days to get even half decent photos as all the butterflies I’ve seen have either been flying frantically from place to place and/or hunkering down in the vegetation so effectively that they’ve been almost impossible to see.

200606 meadow brown (1)

In his fabulous publication Life Cycles of British & Irish Butterflies, Peter Eeles notes that, due to their colour differences, the male and female Meadow browns were once thought to be two separate species, the male named the ‘Brown Meadow Ey’d Butterfly’ and the female the ‘Golden Meadow Ey’d Butterfly’. In the photo below, the male is on the left, the female on the right.

200606 meadow brown (2)

Apparently, there are also colour variations in different parts of Britain, and scientists have officially identified these as four separate subspecies. The ones I see here in south Wales are Maniola jurtina insularis, which is the most widespread. Personally, I often have trouble simply telling male from female, and that’s something I’m going to try to improve during the next few months.

200606 meadow brown (3)