Butterflies and Moths

Sunday, June 19th 2022

When the sun shone and the wind dropped it was amazing to see what was flying around Foxglove.  A glimpse of blue could have been a Common Blue Butterfly, but the first insect to be photographed was a Small Heath Butterfly, in a different place from last year.

There are two skipper butterflies on the reserve, Large and Small.  Sometimes it is easy to distinguish between them, other times they leave you wondering if they have actually read the books on ID!  I took this photograph and thought Small, but when viewed on the computer screen  I thought Large. I'll let you decide, suffice to say this is a skipper butterfly!

Another movement and a quick click of the camera revealed a Painted Lady, not in brilliant colour as it had flown from the continent.  These first migrants will breed and we will have pristine Painted Lady butterflies by the end of summer.  Some of these adults will then migrate back to the continent.

The moth trap was emptied and another Eyed Hawkmoth was revealed.  When placed on a leaf it decided that I was a predator and opened its wings to show its frightening eyes!

Something yellow caught my eye and on following it for a little while it finally showed its forewings, with not too much vegetation between me and it, to enable me to see that it was a Yellow Shell moth.  Not frequently seen nor caught in the trap very often.

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