Dingy Skipper Butterfly

-

 It has been a cold Spring and most things are at least three weeks behind schedule. I had not expected to see much in the way of butterflies when I walked to Waitby Greenriggs reserve yesterday so I was delighted to see that the Dingy Skippers had arrived.


This tiny and well camouflaged butterfly is often overlooked. These little insects fly close to the ground and often rest with their wings in a moth like outstretched position rather than the butterfly (wings folded overhead) position. If these are noticed at all they are often thought to be the Mother Skipton moth which they resemble. The food plant associated with this butterfly is the birds foot trefoil. The butterfly is scarce in Scotland and is the only skipper found in Ireland but there are several pockets where it does well in England. Numbers have suffered a 62% decline in the UK since the 1970's, probably as a result in changes of land use. These declines have been mirrored in the rest of Europe. These butterflies have two broods per year in the South of the country but there is usually only one brood here in the North.

Diary.
A much warmer day 17C. Saw a weasel in the garden. Set trail cams to look for our hedgehog but failed.
On my walk yesterday lots of birds eye primrose and the insectivorous plant butterwort is in flower.
A bit more success with my moth trap last night. Six species of moth and one black burying beetle. I am showing the "white ermine" moth and the "pale tussock" moth as being the two most photogenic. I think you will be able to work out which is which.






Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

The Dunnock

-
Image
 When I was a boy my first bird book described "hedge sparrows" but at some time in the last 50 years this name has all but disappeared and these birds are now called dunnocks (as they are not closely related to House and Tree Sparrows) Its easy to miss a dunnock! They are little brown birds and they tend to feed on the ground and keep to the cover of vegetation if they can. The males are territorial and the birds pair up in the spring. The pair are not strictly monogamous and the female will mate with another male if she gets the chance. DNA testing reveals that a brood often has more than one father. The male dunnocks are alert to this possibility and can sometimes be seen pecking at the cloacal opening of the female in an attempt to get her to expel the sperm of the competitor. The sexes look alike and these birds are common and widespread in Britain. The males get involved in feeding young according to their breeding success so it is common to find two males and one femal...
Read more

Spring Gentian

-
Image
 We were a bit further afield this week. We spent a day in Teesdale at the Cow Green reservoir. On the banks of the reservoir grow a number of unusual flowers. The rarest (not found in any other part of Britain) is the Spring Gentian. I have seen this plant before in Alpine pastures and in the wonderful limestone pavements of the Burren in the West of Ireland, but this is the first time I have seen them Britain. The plant is pollinated by bees but ants are responsible for spreading the seeds.There were only a few gentian but there were hundreds of the little mountain pansies which do well in the same dry and chalky soil.  Diary There has been a sudden spurt of growth by the wild flowers this week. Our meadow is full of the white flowers of pignut, and the pinks of ragged robin. In our bog meadow today I disturbed a hen pheasant who tried to chase me away from her tiny striped chicks that were running about in the tall grass. We have been hearing cuckoos this week. One day arou...
Read more

White Clawed Crayfish

-
Image
 I went for a walk yesterday that took me along the Scandal Beck (a tributary of the River Eden). On the banks of the river was a stone that had obviously been used as a picnic table by an otter and the remains of his meal were strewn about. A recognisable part of the leftovers is shown below. It's clear that this claw comes from a white clawed crayfish. These animals are not common in the UK as they need the water to be rich in calcium. This requirement is fulfilled in the Eden valley by the limestone substrate. I think that the River Eden is as far North as theses animals get. I know that there are crayfish in this part of the system because for a number of years I have volunteered with the Eden Rivers Trust to survey them. It was not uncommon to find a couple of hundred animals in a 300m stretch of river. The following images give an indication of scale. In recent years the population of the native white clawed crayfish has been threatened by the arrival of the invasive signal (...
Read more