19 Tuesday May 2020
Red admiral, that is. Last year, this was the first butterfly I saw, and it was early, in January. In fact, I saw two of them before January 2019 came to a close. This year it’s taken four and a half months but, finally, on Saturday, when I was enjoying a lovely wander along a local path, admiring the tall frothy loveliness of masses of Cow parsley, this little beauty floated towards me and settled, very obligingly, on a bramble bush right next to the path. Butterfly bliss!
19 Tuesday Nov 2019
Tags
autumn insects, bees, British insects, Cosmeston Lakes Country Park, hoverflies, ivy flowers, moth larva, Red Admiral, wasp
It may be late autumn, with shortening days, chill winds and cooling nights but, when the sun comes out as it did yesterday, the insects also come out to warm themselves and feed. During my walk around Cosmeston I spotted a late Red admiral butterfly and then, further on, where ivy was still flowering, a host of flying mini-beasties: hoverflies, various bees and wasps. And, near them, tucked away further down on a bramble leaf, even a caterpillar, probably a moth larva though I’m not sure which species.
11 Wednesday Sep 2019
Posted in 365DaysWildin2019, autumn, insects, nature, plants
Tags
#365DaysWild, autumn fruit, blackberries, bramble, British butterflies, butterfly, Red Admiral, Red admiral on bramble
I think everyone would agree that blackberries, the fruit of the bramble bush, are delicious. I’m not one of those people who risks the almost obligatory scratches to go blackberrying at this time of year – I prefer to leave them to the birds and minibeasts. But, at Cosmeston yesterday, I’d been walking longer than I anticipated and my stomach was rumbling so I thought I’d grab a few to keep me going.
Well, if looks could kill, I would never have made it home because these Red admiral butterflies were absolutely certain the blackberries belonged to them. And they weren’t going to relent, letting me get my hand really close to them without moving a millimetre. One even flew out and ‘buzzed’ me before re-settling on its chosen fruit. I got the message and left them to their feast.
07 Wednesday Aug 2019
Posted in 365DaysWildin2019, flowers, insects, nature, wildflowers
Tags
British wildflowers, Dingy footman, Gatekeeper, Hemp agrimony, Painted Lady, Red Admiral, Ringlet, Six-spot burnet, Speckled wood, Willow beauty moth
I’ve been spending a lot of time over the past couple of weeks staring at Hemp agrimony flowers. I’ve not yet found what I’ve been searching for – you’ll be the first to know when/if I do – but, in the meantime, here are just a few of the lovely creatures I’ve spotted nectaring on these pretty flowers: a Dingy footman moth, a Six-spot burnet moth and a Gatekeeper, a Painted lady, a Red admiral, a Ringlet, a Speckled wood and what might be a Willow beauty moth, but the jury’s still out on that one.
03 Saturday Aug 2019
Posted in 365DaysWildin2019, insects, nature, wildflowers
Tags
Alners Gorse, British butterflies, butterfly, butterflying, Comma, Essex skipper, Purple hairstgreak, Red Admiral, Small copper
Off we went again, our gallant gang of four, this time in search of the rare Brown hairstreak at Butterfly Conservation’s Alners Gorse reserve in Dorset.
This reserve is beautiful, the colourful swathes of wildflowers reminiscent of a painting by Monet or Van Gogh, the wide range of trees providing diverse habitats for local wildlife and welcome shade for butterfliers on yet another hot summer’s day.
Unfortunately, the Brown hairstreaks eluded us, and most of the other 20-odd people wandering around the reserve, staring intently, as we were, at bramble bushes, hedgerows and oak trees.
One person, on turning a corner in the path, had almost bumped into a Brown, but the butterfly immediately flew off and wasn’t seen again. A couple said they’d seen one high in a tree but much tree staring failed to produce another sighting.
Still, there were butterflies in abundance and my list for the day totalled a very respectable seventeen: Silver-washed fritillary, Purple hairstreak, Comma, Peacock, Red admiral, Painted lady, Essex skipper, Small skipper, Small white, Green-veined white, Common blue, Small copper, Brimstone, Meadow brown, Ringlet, Gatekeeper and Speckled wood. My companions also saw Marbled white, bringing the group total to eighteen – I was obviously staring at a tree at that time!
Alners Gorse is a well known site for Marsh fritillaries – now finished for this year, and we saw large numbers of other insects – hoverflies, bees, flies, crickets and grasshoppers, and several species of dragonfly, so it’s well worth a visit at any time of the year.
16 Tuesday Jul 2019
Posted in 365DaysWildin2019, insects, nature, walks
Tags
#365DaysWild, British butterflies, butterfly, butterflying, Comma, Peacock, Red Admiral, Silver-washed fritillary, Slade Wood, Small tortoiseshell, White admiral
Yesterday, with my friend Sharon, I went to Slade Wood, in the neighbouring county of Gwent, for a walk and some butterflying.
The woodland was lovely and a haven from the hot sun but, for us, the best butterflying was to be had just wandering along the country lane leading to the woodland. With high hedges, abundant wildflowers and occasional blooming Buddleia bushes, backed by the tall woodland trees, it was heaven for butterflies. These are a few of the 12 species we saw …
My first White admirals of the year, the first I’ve seen in Wales; they seem to float over the vegetation.
Those giant orange-and-brown speedsters, the Silver-washed fritillaries.
Red admiral extracting minerals from poo … mmmmm, delicious!
Comma, incredibly well camouflaged amongst the grasses and leaf litter, also heading for a slurp at the poo.
Peacock, hiding its glorious bold colours away behind those closed wings.
Small tortoiseshell, a pretty little butterfly that I don’t see very often, so a delight to spot one of these.
24 Sunday Mar 2019
Posted in 365DaysWildin2019, insects, nature, spring
I wondered if today’s sunshine might bring out the butterflies and it did, though this little Red admiral made me wait until I was almost home from my local amble before it appeared. And then it led me a merry dance, settling on a lamp post for just a second, fluttering off along the road as if it was departing, disappearing behind some trees, reappearing from the other direction, sidling up to the lamp post again, almost instantly flying off. Pretty flitty little thing!
28 Monday Jan 2019
Posted in 365DaysWildin2019, insects, nature, winter
The sun may have been shining but it was frosty and very chilly when I spotted this Red admiral on the Penarth to Lavernock coastal path this morning. This is actually my second Red admiral for the year – I also saw one at Cathays Cemetery in Cardiff last week, but only managed a photo of a blurry red splotch high in a tree. I couldn’t help but feel sorry for this morning’s little butterfly, partly because of the cold – and it’s forecast to get much colder in the coming week – but also because there were no flowers to be seen anywhere today. If it doesn’t freeze to death, this little Red admiral might well die of hunger.
08 Sunday Apr 2018
Tags
Abraxas grossulariata, Andrena flavipes, Magpie moth caterpillar, Red Admiral, Red velvet mite, Trombidiidae, Vanessa atalanta, Yellow-legged mining bee
I mentioned yesterday that I saw my first butterflies of 2018 this week. The first was a Peacock but my camera was in my backpack and, by the time I extracted it, the butterfly had flown off. I was still cursing that fact when another butterfly appeared, this lovely Red admiral (Vanessa atalanta). Snap!
On Wednesday’s walk, as well as the bee-flies I blogged about yesterday, I also saw several varieties of bee. I’m hopeless at identifying bees – I will focus on them one year to try to improve my skills, but that won’t be this year. Luckily, there’s a good Facebook group where the folks are very helpful, and they’ve IDed these as Yellow-legged mining bees (Andrena flavipes). They’re spring-flying solitary bees that make individual nests but often in large groups (the experts call them aggregations). This lot, of perhaps 20, were digging in to a sandy bank by the seaside. (Here’s a link to more information from BWARS.)
This next little critter was tiny, as you can see by comparison with my hand behind (and I have small hands). Once again, I needed help on the ID but the folks from my local Butterfly Conservation Facebook group are experts. This is a caterpillar of the Magpie moth (Abraxas grossulariata), a stunning-looking moth that I have not yet seen. Its caterpillar is quite lovely too, don’t you think?
Though only 3 to 5mm long, these little Red Velvet Mites are hard to miss, simply because of their unusual colour. This is one of the Trombidiidae family but I don’t know which one. It’s really an arachnid (note the eight legs) rather than an insect but I’m including it here anyway. It’s carnivorous but no need to worry – it only eats creatures smaller than itself!
And, finally, a bee that I haven’t tried to put a name to – I just liked it for the way it’s positively luxuriating in the pollen of this Lesser celandine flower.
24 Tuesday Oct 2017
Tags
British butterflies, butterflies, butterfly, Clouded yellow, Colias croceus, Colias croceus f. helice, Combefield Quarry, Comma, Peacock, Red Admiral
We went for a wander around Combefield Quarry in Portland looking for birds but found butterflies instead. And very nice butterflies they were too, especially considering we are now half way through autumn. There were two Peacocks, a Comma, Speckled woods and Red admirals …
And the icing on the cake was not one but two Clouded yellows (Colias croceus). But wait there’s more … I’ve been told that the paler of these Clouded yellows may well be the helice variety (Colias croceus f. helice), which is something of a rarity. So, we were privileged indeed with our Lepidoptera sightings that day.
