West Park Small Coppers

Today I was gifted with a local view of three Small Copper at my new favourite patch on the grassland at West Park near the university campus. I firstly located two seperate butterflies near the path in a sheltered, low lying area of the grassland (to the left in the pic below).

I watched two tussle and shoot off at incredible speed and I lost sight of them for a minute before one reappeared on the path in front of me. Then I noticed another amongst the grasses on a sorrel plant where it crawled its way down the stem, typical behaviour of the female searching for suitable host plants.

A female Green Veined White, more heavily marked than the males, nectaring on Garlic Mustard .

Here's the sheltered path bordered by Hawthorns and other native species where I spotted the Green Veined White and a male Orange Tip.

 

Bolton Percy Station - Holly Blue

A trip out to one of Yorkshire Wildlife Trust's smaller reserves - Bolton Percy Station, near Tadcaster provided further Holly Blue (Celastrina argiolus) sightings and this year's first glimpse of a Small Copper.  





Male Holly Blue (Bolton Percy)

Female Holly Blue (Adel)

 





The Holly Blue that we saw at Adel churchyard was a female (see the black border to the upperside forewing in the pic above right), by the lack of a black border on the upperwing of this one (above left) I'd say its a male. 



Also at Bolton Percy Station, our first Small Copper sighting of the year.

A Green Veined White (Pieris napi)







Adel Churchyard

As of last week I hadn't managed to capture any shots this year of Green Veined Whites at rest. Our trip to Ben Rhydding Gravel Pits provided the first pics and a visit to Adel Churchyard offered a few more opportunities to catch them feeding from the same flower Lady's Smock or Cuckoo Flower. The black tip on the forewing suggests that the first two are male Green Veined Whites.

A now familiar Small Copper, I watched it settle repeatedly on patches of earth where the vegetation was dried or worn away.

As we sat to admire the view this Mistle Thrush landed on a gravestone, other churchyard birds included, Great Tit, Blue Tit, Blackbird, Chaffinch, Wren.

Druridge Bay and Creswell

On our way down the Northumberland coast we stopped off at a few lovely spots, calling in at Druridge Bay. Yet again the butterflies didn't disappoint. We spotted 4 Small Skippers Thymelicus sylvestris, a widespread butterfly, I think its a female as it lacks the male's distinctive black wing mark.
Amonst the dunes an abundance of Cinnabar moth caterpillars, the larval foodplant is Ragwort and caterpillars fed communally on their foodplant. I spotted a few Cinnabar on my last visit to Druridge Bay.

The larvae need long grasses on which to pupate and produce a papery yellow cocoon.

On the walk to the hide at Druridge Pools. I was delighted to come across my first Fritillary.

I have to admit that I was struggling to identify it until I came across this view of the underwings which I think is Dark Green Fritillary Argynnis aglaja.


Two Green Veined White, I was pleased to capture this one, note how the one on the right has its abdomen raised. A defence mechanism or mating behaviour?

A slug chomps its way through a small cap & stem fungi.

At the end of our wander we spotted this albino rabbit in the dunes. At first we wondered how it managed to survive as it stood out like a sore thumb but maybe it is camouflaged in the sandy dunes. We saw a similar coloured rabbit in the vicinity a couple of months previous.


Down the road at Creswell, Lapwing, Mallards, a pair of Shelduck with two young, Redshank, Curlew, Grey Heron. As a small aircraft flew overhead 40 odd Lapwing took to the sky.

Seahouses butterflies

Our original idea to walk across the dunes from Seahouses to Bamburgh was quickly superceded by the urge to park our backsides and enjoy the view. The sun appeared through the clouds intermittently & this Painted Lady settled no more than a metre away from us in a shallow basin at the top of a high dune. For a period of 20 minutes it repeatedly flew off to reappear a minute later & bask in the sunshine open winged.

Here's the view looking back to Seahouses.

Scattered through the dunes, patches of Harebell.

A couple of Green Veined Whites on the other side of the harbour.