Hollesley Butterfly Count

David is counting butterflies (with my help) and submitting records to iRecord for Butterfly Conservation. We visited SWT Hollesley Marsh this afternoon, where we counted a total of 207 butterflies in less than two hours, logging ten species ...

1. Gatekeeper
2. Large White
3. Small White
4. Meadow Brown
   
5. Red Admiral
6. Painted Lady
7. Small Heath
8. Peacock
9. Speckled Wood
10. Small Tortoiseshell
    

As you can see, the views are beautiful, but the dry grass, harvested field (with stack of bales) and ripe blackberries we saw made it feel more like September than July. 

Visitors are not permitted on the beach to preserve the environment for wildlife

Holiday Butterflies (3): White Admiral, Holt Country Park

 

In my previous post I mentioned Holt Country Park, where we saw our first Silver-washed Fritillary butterflies last month. In fact I also saw my first White Admirals. David had seen a single White Admiral days before at NWT Hickling Broad Reserve, where we were really looking for Swallowtails. I had missed it, so was particularly pleased to find these striking butterflies at Holt. I was surprised, however, to discover how (relatively) small they were, but perhaps that is in comparison with the Swallowtails and Fritillaries. I reckon they are about the same size as a Red Admiral. 

I love the almost tiger-like markings in the photo below.

The larvae only feed on Honeysuckle (Lonicera periclymenum). Adults can be found on nectar-rich brambles. At the present time these butterflies can be found in shady areas roughly from Lincolnshire to Devon.

Holiday Butterflies (2): Silver-washed Fritillary Sighting

 

This post follows on from my Swallowtail one and is the second of my posts about three species of butterfly, all new to us, that we saw during our recent time away in Norfolk. 

 

 

David and I visited Holt Country Park for the first time. It was a very hot day in June, and we were grateful for the shade afforded by the woodland rides. We had barely left the car park when we saw the flutter of large orange wings, the large orange wings of our first ever Silver-washed Fritillary! 

 

Several sightings followed thereafter, though the butterflies were very active and hard to catch on camera. 

I believe this is only the second species of Fritillary I have ever knowingly seen, the first being the exquisite Pearl-bordered variety, which we encountered back in 2014 on the famous path to Hallaig on the tiny Inner Hebridean island of Raasay. 

 

Pearl-bordered Fritillary, path to Hallaig, Raasay, 2014

2014 Photoshop collage: Raasay with Fritillary

 

I missed seeing the Fritillary David found in Galloway in 2018, but he let me post his photo here. 

 

Our Fritillary sightings have been few and far between, and two have been north of the border. The word 'fritillary' makes me think not only of butterflies but of the Snakes-head Fritillary flower. I began wondering why these chequered butterflies and plants should share this name. What did it mean? 

 

I did a bit of Googling (this article may not have answered my question, but it proved a fascinating read along the way), and discovered that while the word finds its origin in Latin, a derivation of it became the name for a 'dice-box' in the 1500s and 1600s. I wonder if some of these boxes from which dice were thrown were themselves made to look like large dice, with spot-marks ... 

 

Update, 15 July 2022

 

I continued to ponder the nature of the dice-box and to wonder how the word fritillary in one of its forms must surely have indicated a feature that would link the appearance of the butterfly with the flower.  

 

Help came from The Oxford English Dictionary, which cites a passage in J. Gerard's Herball of 1597. This passage suggests that what we recognise as the Fritillary flower was known as Frittillaria (as Gerard spelled it). Gerard proceeded to add that Frittillus (again, his spelling), a slightly different form of the word, was thought by some to refer to a chessboard comprising 'square checkers'. This last bit makes good sense to me as both butterfly and flower display a design similar to that of a chessboard.

Update: Butterflies in the Garden

 

Latest First Garden Sighting of 2022, seen this evening at 19.30 hrs

I shall return to my holiday sightings soon (this was my Swallowtail post, in case you missed it); but I am interrupting the sequence to add my latest garden sightings, along with the latest addition, as shown above. 

Once again I am taking part in the Butterfly Conservation 'Garden Butterfly Survey'. The chart below shows my 2022 records from the beginning of the year up until yesterday. 

 

Some of you will know that we signed a Suffolk Wildlife Trust pledge, saying 'no to the mow'. I think the long grass of our suburban micro-meadow is beginning to pay dividends. I hope the Buddleias, several of them self-seeded, make a positive difference, too.

Total: 17 species ... and counting.

Butterflies and More at Hollesley Marshes

We decided to explore a section of the sea-wall at Hollesley Marshes, a small section of the Suffolk coast that was new to us. It was a very blustery afternoon, but dry and not very cold. To our surprise we found a good range of lepidoptera, a dragonfly and quite a few blue damselflies (which I have yet to check). 

Butterflies seen:

1. Speckled Wood (above)
2. Painted Lady 
3. Red Admiral
   
4. Large Skipper (our first of the season)
5. Green Hairstreak
6. Small Tortoiseshell
7. Green-veined White
8. Speckled Wood
   

Moth:

1. (A rather tatty) Yellow Shell
   

Dragonfly: 

1. Hairy Dragonfly
   

The area contains an inland RSPB reserve and also the coastal and estuarine reserve of Simpson's Saltings, run by the Suffolk Wildlife Trust. The next two photos show a couple of meres in the RSPB part of the site.

The photo below shows a larger wetland area on the landward side of the sea-wall. We saw a range of waterbirds here; Shoveler, Shelduck, Avocet, Mute Swan, Redshank, Lapwing and more.

I was very taken with this secluded bay in the Simpson's Saltings area. The wide estuary beyond is part of the river; the shore is reserved for wildlife so we admired it from the bank.

Shoveler on one of the landward meres

 

The next photo shows David on the sea-wall. The strong wind was responsible for all those white horses beyond.

Green Hairstreak

Red Admiral (and below)

The red arrow shows the saltings on the Alde-Ore estuary site

A very tattered Yellow Shell moth

Large Skipper butterfly

Hairy Dragonfly

You can see the hairy thorax below the eyes

wildflowers; the poppies were stunning

Small Toroiseshell

A drift of Thrift

A wasp, as yet unidentified, probably collecting slivers of wood

 

Green-veined White

Damselfly season kicking off apace!

Green Hairstreak and Other Sightings

Green Hairstreak, one of three seen at Aldeburgh, Suffolk, 14 May 2022

There is something intriguing about a green butterfly, probably because the Green Hairstreak is the only green (as opposed to green-veined) species of butterfly we are likely to encounter here in the UK. It was a thrill to see three of these beautiful iridescent insects last Saturday afternoon in Aldeburgh, Suffolk. You can read a bit about the nanoscale structures on the wings of a Green Hairstreak here. 

We also saw:

• Small White
• Peacock
• Common Blue
• Speckled Wood
• Orange Tip. 

We thought we might have seen a Brown Argus, but I'm not convinced as the outer wing markings of the blue butterflies I photographed seem to match those of the Common Blue. I often return to this website for guidance. 

I may not have been posting on this blog for a while, but I have been keeping my eyes and ears open for seasonal changes in the garden and on our walks. We heard our first Cuckoo on 1 May, the day we saw our first House Martins and Swallows. We saw our first damselflies of 2022 on Saturday (14th). 

My Butterfly Conservation 'Garden Butterfly Survey' list for 2022 currently includes the following sightings in no particular order:

• Small White
• Large White
• Holly Blue
• Speckled Wood
• Peacock
• Red Admiral (today)
• Comma
• Orange Tip
  

On our little excursions beyond the garden we have also seen Small Coppers, (and as mentioned above) Common Blues and Green Hairstreaks.  

 

* * * 

P.S. On the rather different subject of birds, you can click here to see my Redwing photograph on the cover of Neil Leadbeater's latest poetry collection, The Gloucester Fragments, a wonderful and inventive collection published by Littoral Press. 

A New Butterfly Season

 

I always look forward to the start of what I might call the 'UK butterfly season', and it was a joy to see this Peacock in one of our wild 'borders' last week. 

I like to take part in the Butterfly Conservation 'Garden Butterfly Survey', which has been re-vamped for the new season. 

David and I both decided to submit three photos for the Suffolk branch of Butterfly Conservation's photographic competition this year. Our photographs were not among the top three winning ones, but do take a look here at those that were. Don't forget to scroll down when you are on the page so that you can see the detail in the full-size entries.