Spot the (Sutton Hoo) Dragon

We returned to NT Sutton Hoo this afternoon and looked in the wood to see how the bluebells are coming along. You can see the green shoots behind Spot the Dragon. Some years we have seen these wonderful flowers attracting Orange-tip butterflies, showing off nature's complementary colours in the best of ways; though I cannot help wondering why there should be such contrast when (surely) camouflage, i.e. a flower and butterfly of the same shade, would afford more protection from predators. 

And by the way, we have at last seen our first butterfly of 2023; a Small Tortoiseshell on 21 March. This seems very late for back in 2004 when we were still living in Swansea, two butterflies alighted on our rockery on a snowy Valentine's Day. I wrote a Haiku to mark the event:

St Valentine’s Day –
butterflies hug the heather,
snow kisses the lawn

Looking across the River Deben to Woodbridge

 

Spot the Dragon and the Sutton Hoo Bluebells

 

I love bluebells, partly because blue is my favourite colour and there are not many flowers that have such an intensity of blue colouring, and partly because they remind me of nursery school visits to Kippington Meadow where we formed a circle and danced, singing 'In and out the dusty bluebells'. I wonder if any of you played this 'song-game' when you were also very young.  

We saw the bluebells in this post yesterday in the woods that form part of the Sutton Hoo estate. There was also plenty of Hawthorn blossom.

 

 

Sutton Hoo overlooks the river Deben and the town on Woodbridge. The tide was going out at speed. 

 

Here be dragons in the wood ...

 

 

... but what I didn't know until yesterday was that this dragon's name appears to be 'Spot'.   ;-)

 

There were one or two winged insects flitting about on the gorse. I wonder what the white sphere is at the top of the red arrow. I am guessing it may be an egg or perhaps pupa of some kind.  

 

Who knows if this impressive den, created with last year's bracken, was meant to resemble an ancient dwelling? 

 

I had wondered if the tiny pink flower below was a type of Storksbill. Perhaps I need to post it on iSpot. 

 * * *

Meanwhile, back in our Suffolk garden the Bee-flies have been making the most of our Dandelions and Honeybees have been busy gathering amber-gold pollen.

 

An Orange-tip, a Dragon and Bluebells at Sutton Hoo

This is just a quick post: I couldn't resist adding the Orange-tip photograph. Doesn't the butterfly look stunning on the Bluebell?

Orange and blue are complementary colours, on opposite sides of the colour wheel, so where does camouflage come in? Obviously it doesn't, but I wonder why...

I am sure the dragon had more to do with the Sutton Hoo Anglo-Saxons than with St George, but there it was waiting for us to find in the wood on 23 April!