The Marbled white and the Skylark

21 Saturday Jun 2025

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birding, birdwatching, British birds, British butterflies, butterflies in Tout Quarry, butterfly, Isle of Portland butterflies, Marbled white, Skylark, Tout Quarry

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.

Cold weather Skylark movement

09 Thursday Mar 2023

Posted by sconzani in birds

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birding, birdwatching, British birds, Cardiff Bay birding, cold weather movement, Skylark

Despite almost constant rain, I trekked down to Cardiff Bay today to see for myself an example of what’s called ‘cold weather movement’ in bird populations. As you can see from this photo, the hills behind Cardiff are still white with the snow that fell across much of Britain yesterday, though none remains here at sea level.

230309 skylarks and snow (1)

And it’s that snowfall that caused a large number of Skylarks to leave their usual hilly pastures and head down to the Bay to feed on the grassy areas of the Barrage. One local birder counted 88 Skylarks there yesterday. Today, in a fenced off area, protected from the returning dogs and their humans, just a dozen birds remained, but it was still worth getting soaked to see such a phenomenon.

230309 skylarks and snow (2)

276/366 A splendid Skylark

02 Friday Oct 2020

Posted by sconzani in nature

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birding, birdwatching, British birds, Linnet, Skylark, south Wales coast, Swallow

With rain forecast for the following few days, I was determined to enjoy my meander along the coast, and it was certainly not difficult to do. So many Swallows, perhaps thousands, were swooping low over the fields, feeding up before heading out across the water, that I spent rather a lot of time just standing, watching, smiling at the sight of them.

There were Linnets too – one flock held more than 200 birds, and a smattering of Meadow pipits and Skylarks, though it wasn’t until I got back to town that I had wonderfully close views of one particular Skylark.

201002 linnets

It was rather incongruously poking about a large grassed area on top of the seaside cliffs, optimistically labelled a ‘park’ by the local council, which is usually devoid of anything but human and canine life. What a splendid bird!

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126/365 ‘The Lark Ascending’

06 Monday May 2019

Posted by sconzani in birds, nature, spring

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birding, birdwatching, British birds, Lark Ascending, Skylark

190506 skylark (1)

He rises and begins to round,
He drops the silver chain of sound,
Of many links without a break,
In chirrup, whistle, slur and shake.
~ from the poem ‘The Lark Ascending’ by English poet George Meredith, 1881

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Birding at St David’s Vale

26 Saturday May 2018

Posted by sconzani in birds, insects, nature

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birding, birdwatching, British birds, Broad-bodied Chaser, Cockchafer, Common heath moth, Glamorgan Bird Club, Meadow pipit, Skylark, Small heath butterfly, St David's Vale, Stonechat, Tree pipit, Whinchat, Willow warbler

I might also have called this blog post ‘One hundred and eighty!’. Let me explain …

180525 St Davids Vale (1)

Last Wednesday I joined fourteen other members of the Glamorgan Bird Club for a day’s birding in the stunning scenery of St David’s Vale, near Abergavenny. We walked part of an ancient hollow way …

180525 St Davids Vale (4) 180525 St Davids Vale (6)

Beneath mighty oaks in an equally ancient woodland carpeted with bluebells …

180525 St Davids Vale (2) 180525 St Davids Vale (3)

And then, as the sun broke through the low cloud that had earlier floated across the border from England, we climbed up on to the broad open moorland, with panoramic views all around and the impressive peak of Sugarloaf looming to our right.

180525 St Davids Vale (5)

Most of the birds mocked my photographic skills and no-so-long lens as they perched on distant tree tops and bushes but I was delighted to hear and then see my very first Wood warbler, and then, on the moorland, several beautiful Whinchats. And those two sightings brought my year list to – yes, you guessed it – one hundred and eighty!

Our keen amateur naturalists also spotted a Small heath butterfly and two Common heath moths (this is the male; the female landed on my trouser leg so another birder got that picture), and a Broad-bodied chaser dragonfly. And we were entertained by the bumbling flights of several Cockchafers (I’ll cover those in a future post.)

Small heath butterfly

Common heath moth

Broad-bodied chaser

Cockchafer

My bird list for the today was: Mistlethrush, Robin, Goldfinch, Blackbird, Great tit, Carrion crow, Meadow pipit, Willow warbler, Swallow, Woodpigeon, Blue tit, Blackcap, Skylark, Buzzard, Chaffinch, Garden warbler, Long-tailed tit, Wood warbler, Stonechat, Raven, Tree pipit, Linnet, Whinchat, Wren, Cuckoo, House sparrow, Pied wagtail, Dunnock, Magpie and Jackdaw. It was a perfectly wonderful day!

Two go cuckoo at Camber

25 Thursday May 2017

Posted by sconzani in birds, coastal fauna, nature, walks

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birding, birdwatching, Black-headed gull, Common tern, Gadwall, Lapwing, Marsh harrier, Oystercatchers, Ringed plover, Rye Harbour Nature Reserve, sheep, Shelduck, Skylark, Sussex Wildlife Trust guided walk

I celebrated my birthday, with my friend Jill, with a quick morning romp around the bird hides at Rye Harbour Nature Reserve, followed by an afternoon Sussex Wildlife Trust guided walk around the inland part of the reserve, including a peek inside the normally locked Camber Castle. And what a superb day it was!

170524 Rye Harbour fauna (10)

I’ve already blogged about one of the highlights, the gorgeous Avocets and their chicks; another was hearing, and catching a fleeting glimpse of my very first Cuckoo. Here are a few more (not so crisp) photos of the wonderful (but mostly distant) wildlife we saw: Common terns, Skylark, Oystercatchers and Dunlin, Black-headed gull, Ringed plover, Gadwall and Shelduck, Lapwing and a Pied wagtail, Marsh harrier, and a number 72; plus, not pictured, Redshank, Coot, Cormorant, Tufted duck, Mallard, Little ringed plover, Grey heron, Kestrel and Whitethroat, as well as the more common birds. A birthday to remember!

Happy as a (Sky)lark

20 Thursday Apr 2017

Posted by sconzani in birds, nature

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Alauda arvensis, bird conservation, bird idiom, birding, birdwatching, British birds, happy as a lark, Red list, Skylark, The Blorenge

It’s easy to see where the ‘happy as a lark’ expression comes from when you hear a Skylark singing – they sound like they’re positively bursting with happiness. And, though they sing throughout the year, spring is the prime season for their singing, as the males perform their vertical flight displays, hovering and belting out their songs from high in the sky before plummeting back down to earth. How could a female Skylark not be impressed with such melodic rhapsodies!

170420 Skylark (1)

When it’s on the ground, the Skylark (Alauda arvensis) can be difficult to spot, as its streaky brown colours blend so well with its preferred habitat, of grassland and moorland, as you can see in these photos, taken on top of The Blorenge, a 561-metre mountain in the Brecon Beacons National Park.

Sadly, the once numerous Skylark has declined greatly in numbers in recent years and it’s now on the British Red List of Birds of Conservation Concern. Its decline has been attributed to agricultural intensification and to changing farming practices – many farmers have switched from spring to autumn for the sowing of their cereal crops, which has a knock-on effect on farmland birds. Hopefully, something can be done to rescue these beautiful songsters; otherwise the Skylark will be happy no longer.