Both yesterday and today , I tried in vain to attempt to refind the Clouded Yellow and Glanville Fritillary that Martin found whilst on transect at Hutchinson's Bank on Friday afternoon . Yesterday morning I got out as soon as it stopped raining , but en route to the site , got soaked from the waist down from the wet vegetation along the way , then when I got there , any brightness disappeared and it started raining again , a real wash-out , literally .
This morning was drier , but the wind was still as strong , with no encouragement for butterflies to get on the wing . Two hours searching failed to find the two species , but surprisingly , 8 species were found , 6 of them being singletons . Small and Common Blue were the two species that managed
more than one specimen , with Grizzled and Dingy Skipper , Small White , Speckled Wood
(pictured) , Small Heath and Large Skipper (pictured) , made up the rest of the sightings . Both pictured butterflies were tucked up in vegetation in a very sheltered corner . It was another day of searching the vegetation to find anything of interest , but it paid off with this colourful spider , which
I believe to be Mangora acalypha , on an Ox-eye Daisy head . Keeping on the same colours scheme ,
was this Burnet Moth caterpillar . One set of insects were definitely not bothered by that wind was the Bumblebees , they always showed well when everything else disappeared from view . It was
almost impossible to miss this Queen Buff-tailed specimen , which dwarfed the Greater Yellow
Rattle on which it was resting . A few more plants found in flower on site included ,
Silverweed / Potentilla anserine , a member of the Rose family ,
Tufted Vetch / Vicia cracca , a member of the Pea family ,
and Bladder Campion / Silene vulgaris , a member of the Pink family .
Very few birds were seen or heard , but a Garden Warbler was singing unseen from Hawthorn scrub and a pair of Bullfinches were heard calling .
Anyone wanting to see shots of Martin's beautiful Clouded Yellow , including topwing , there is a link on my sidebar .
4 comments:
should pick up for inverts this week greenie, the weather is meant to cheer up a bit :-)
Hoping for a Large Skipper here this week :-)
I should be looking again, if its sunny on Monday, hopefully will get a transect in as well.
Its been 2 non butterfly days on site since the two delights of friday afternoon.
we had the burnet caterpillar on friday too.
That is a stunning butterfly Greenie. Never seen the upper wing before as far as I can remember. In fact I don't think I've seen one settled before.
Soaking wet from the waist down? Last time that happened to me was...........no let's not go there:-)
Greenie.
It is a shame you never got to see the butterflies that you wanted to. After 2 hours you deserved a sighting.
The last time I saw a Clouded yellow was some years ago now when Pam and I was at Oare Marsh.
The weather was just as bad over here today.
I like the picture of the Large Skipper.
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