Latest Lepidopteran Garden Sightings

We had a short burst of sunshine yesterday morning, and were delighted to find our first Gatekeeper of the year in the garden.

We also noticed this moth, which I'm guessing is a Silver Y on account of the 'Y' markings, though it seemed an unusual pose for one of these insects. It was resting in dappled shade under the Silver Birch, and was tricky to photograph. 

A new flower, the mauve one below, has opened in the place where we planted the wildflower seeds given to us by Butterfly Conservation (Suffolk branch). I'm assuming this IS Corncockle rather than the yellow one, which I now think is Corn Marigold. Please correct me if I still haven't got these names sorted! I hope the weather will improve so that insects are attracted to these latest blooms.

Big Butterfly Counts at NT Wicken Fen and Sutton Hoo

David and I have now submitted several Big Butterfly Count surveys: there is still time to do a survey this weekend, and longer still until the final submission date. 

Large and Small Whites have been showing in good numbers in our neck of the woods, but the 'red row' on the survey chart for Commas, Peacocks, Red Admirals and Painted Ladies has been consistently lacking in the counts we have undertaken so far. 

We were at NT Wicken Fen near Ely again last Saturday, and were told to keep an eye out for the Brown Argus. To the novice (me), these butterflies can look very similar to the female Common Blue, but from what I have read on what I consider to be reliable websites, I believe we certainly saw a few Brown Argus.

The fenman's cottage garden at the approach to Wicken Fen was in full bloom.

I think this may well be one of the Brown Argus sightings, though it helps when you can see both sides of the wing!

... And there were definitely a few Speckled Woods about. 

We only saw one Small Copper.

On our previous visit there were plenty of Gatekeepers, but this time it was the Meadow Browns that were showing in good numbers. 

That little 'smudge' in the wing design intrigues me. 

A number of beautiful Brimstones were sighted and duly marked down on the chart. 



The only 'red' I saw was this Red Admiral, high up above the boardwalk. We usually see a few Commas down on the Butterfly Walk, but there were none about on this occasion. 

There were signs to say that some of the sedge had been harvested. 

The last two photos were taken at NT Sutton Hoo on a small clump of Viper's Bugloss. The Silver Y below is, of course, a day-flying moth and not a butterfly, but it is one of the species featured in the Big Butterfly Count, so we were pleased to find it. And, incidentally, we saw our first one in the garden a few days ago, too (or to be more precise, on a windowsill).

If you have a spare 15 minutes, do take part in the Big Butterfly Count. Oh, and I haven't forgotten to post a selection of holiday photos: I have in fact been busy making myself a Photobox album with some of them ...

More Butterflies (including another Big Butterfly Count) and Moths

We spent Saturday at NT Wicken Fen in Cambridgeshire. It was a very hot day and we hoped that we might see good numbers of odonata and lepidoptera.

We decided to do a second Big Butterfly Count - this time along the Butterfly Walk. We saw other butterflies, too, such as the Small Tortoiseshell and the Peacock, but the ones in the list above were the ones we were able to count during the allocated time.

I mentioned in my previous post that there are two day-flying moths that can be counted alongside butterflies for the purpose of this particular survey, namely the Silver Y (a migratory species) and the Six-spot Burnet. I have seen both these species this year (the Silver Y sighting was a first for me), but not during a count.

The Silver Y in the photos below was at NT Dunwich Heath, nectaring on bell heather.

You can make out the tail of the letter 'y' on the left forewing

Frontal view

So then we come to the Six-spot Burnet.

The photo below (my apologies for the lack of focus: I blame the breeze which caused the grass to sway!) was taken at Minsmere ...

... where we also saw the adult moths taking to the air on their maiden voyages ...

There is another day-flying (but also night-flying) moth that we sometimes see here in Suffolk, the Cinnabar moth. Its caterpillars stand out against the grass and can often be seen on Ragwort. Here is a photo:

And here is the adult moth in a picture I took at Snape Maltings in early June ...

cropped close-up