High Elms Butterflies

Comma butterfly, Polygonium c-alba, on Hogweed, Heracleum sphondylium.
14 July 2011.

There wasn't much sunshine today, and it was quite cool, which didn't help on the High Elms butterfly walk. Terry Jones of BCS led it, and he kept gesturing for the sun to appear .. it wasn't completely absent, and we did see a few butterflies.

However, many of them were at a distance and quite shy, so I only have a few slightly blurred crops of the more colourful ones. But I did get some very nice shots of other insects, that were less inclined to run away when I approached.

A fair-sized group of people followed Terry round the likely spots in High Elms Country Park. The grazed field, Burnt Gorse, the Orchid Bank, some of the woods, around the edge of the golf course. We saw quite a few Meadow Browns, Small Skippers, Large Whites and Ringlets. The first of the less usual ones was a showy Comma, high on a lush Hogweed. Then a Fritillary flew purposefully right across our field of view.

Red Admiral butterfly, Vanessa atalanta. 14 July 2011.

On Burnt Gorse we saw another Fritillary that actually rested for a while. On the Orchid Bank was a Red Admiral. I saw another Comma there, too. But there were much fewer of these than there might have been it it had been warmer and brighter. Terry had seen a White-Letter Hairstreak around a stand of Rosebay WIllowherbs on the Orchid Bank, but there was no sign of one today.

But he did point out some crab spiders on the same Willowherbs, and I saw quite a few hoverflies, wasps, grasshoppers and other invertebrates.

These photos were taken with my EOS 60D and 100mm macro lens, sometimes with a 1.4x Kenko Teleplus Pro extender.

Silver-Washed Fritillary, Argynnis paphia, on Burnt Gorse.  Butterfly walk at High Elms Country Park, 14 July 2011.

Honey bee, Apis mellifera, drinking nectar from White Melilot, Melilotus albus, on Burnt Gorse.
Butterfly walk at High Elms Country Park, 14 July 2011.

Orange Ladybird, Halyzia sedecimguttata, in a tree at the edge of the golf course.
Butterfly walk at High Elms Country Park, 14 July 2011.

Common Wasp, Vespula vulgaris,  on Hogweed, Heracleum sphondylium.  High Elms Country Park, 14 July 2011.
The small insect hitching a lift on its wing looks like an aphid.