The Butterflies Return to Life

The butterflies really haven't had a great start to the year with the spring having been so cool and windy. I've really not seen many at all, and today'd walking and cycling - been out for three hours plus today - has really reinforced how badly orange tips in particular have faired this spring. Their numbers seem to be way down on the last couple of years. So it was nice to catch a few on the wing today, on what has been a glorious day. The ambient temperature has not been very high, but the sun has been very strong and the sky sufficiently clear to see to the edge of the universe. Speckled woods are the most numerous at the moment, with these brown and white spotted flutterers in evidence virtually anywhere there are a few trees. Large whites patrol hedgerows, the nervous small heath was out and about on Beacon Hill Park and doing its usual thing of flying away the moment a cameraphone was deployed within five metres. No skippers on the park yet though, although their favourite scabious flowers are out. I even saw my first red admiral of the year, a beautiful freshly unwrapped one on the reserve. When the buddleias along the river flower, then they will swarm in to drink deep of the purple flowers. I await the painted lady migration with interest. The feeling is it may be a strong year for them. Enjoy the sun! Si

Foxgloves

Speckled wood on the cycle path

I'm flagging up a mallard

Buttercups paint the field gold

The dark and light of life

So much valerian around this year

Speckled wood again

Scabious, much beloved of burnet moths and skippers

Honey bee

Tree bumble on geranium