Wednesday 25 July 2012

Butterflies and Moths (11): Near Snape

The butterfly above is, I believe, a Small Copper. The bright sunlight has affected the level of iridescence and made the outer wing look rather purple! These Ragwort flowers near the River Alde in Suffolk were a magnet for lepidotera ...
This tiger-like caterpillar will develop into a Cinnabar Moth. Cinnabars have a lengthway stripe while Burnets have spots.

You might also like ... this lizard that we saw in the same area.

P.S. There were some Large White butterflies in my garden today, but they were too fluttery to photograph! I would encourage those of us in Britain to follow Sir David Attenborough's advice and take part in the Big Butterfly Survey. If you click the link (or this one here), you will also be able to read about the part M&S are playing in encouraging their farmers and customers to look out for butterflies.

3 comments:

Randy Emmitt said...

Caroline,
Just love your Small Copper photo! There are lots of coppers in the US, but none near by us to see, most in the western US.

Andrea said...

Hi Caroline, sometimes i see butterflies which are small and looks like that, but i am not able to take their photos. And those larvae are beautiful. I wonder if you might know the larva in the 3rd photo of my current post. Randy was there but he doesn't know it because he didn't offer the answer:) I envy your style there of enumerating all the butterfly, ladybeetle sightings. I wish we are that concerned of them too!

kirstallcreatures said...

Wow I bet the Small Copper on the Ragwort was a bright combination, lovely little butterfly, Linda