Even more butterflies

Yesterday we were up at the wood for some friends visiting, and while we were waiting we did a bit of trimming of the vegetation at the side of the track in the wayleave:Along the way we saw dozens of butterflies - I think this year is much better for them than last year! Here's some pictures of them.

Meadow Brown's were abundant (you can identify them by the single white spot inside the black spot on their wings):
A butterfly that can look superficially similar with its wings shut is the Gatekeeper, but it has two white spots inside the black spot. With it's wings open it is quite different though - here's the first good photos I've had of one:
and I was especially pleased to get this picture of one taking off:
Another butterfly I got in flight was this Large White:
I got these photos of butterflies in flight by chance, but I'm trying to come up with a way of getting them deliberately... more to come if it works out!

And finally, this year's invasion of Painted Ladies continues unabated:
That's all for now.
Mike

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Butterlies and log stacks

Yesterday I popped up the wood on my own for a few hours before the forecast rain arrived. My main intention was to stack some logs in a rack to accelerate their drying and have them ready to process later in the year. But first I was distracted by some butterflies, like this Peacock:
I waited a minute and it opened it's wings fully, letting me get an even better picture:
There were also still a lot of Painted Ladies around, both in the wayleave and in clearings inside the wood:
I also spotted a butterfly I've not seen before, or at least not identified. It's a Ringlet. Not rare, but still nice to see:
Anyway, I eventually got down to some work, building a rack to put some birch logs in. The smaller logs went straight into the rack after striping, and the bigger ones are waiting on the path to be split:
The striping is important, as it breaks the waterproof bark of the birch, allowing it to dry out quickly. You just skim the chainsaw (carefully!) along the sides of the log, leaving them like this:
The bigger logs can be split with the maul and wedges, though birch doesn't cleave as neatly as chestnut. Still, I didn't do a bad job on some of the logs:
They'll all now dry out very rapidly, and there's still room in the rack for some more:
One last thing - we had thunderstorms here on Thursday night, and it was pretty windy too. As a result this branch came down between the public footpath and our main ride:It's not in a dangerous place though, so we'll leave it for the moment and see if it can become a bit of dead wood habitat.

Mike

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A couple of hours in the sun

Today we went to the wood and helped Butterfly Conservation in their survey of this year's migration of Painted Lady butterflies, which is the biggest for many years.
This involved sitting at the edge of the wayleave from 11:00-13:00
and counting all the Painted Ladies that flew across in front of us - they're going the same way, as they migrate North.
In all, we saw 77 in the two hours! We saw other cool insects as well, such as this damselfly:
and various dragonflies:
The other thing we were doing in the wood was checking the trail camera we'd left by the badger sett last night, but there was nothing apart from a video of me walking away from the camera and coming back to it! We've set it up again in a different place and with different sensitivity settings, so we'll see what we get... Anyway, I did at least get a nice photo of the moon last night:
Mike

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Attack of the butterflies!

Yes, really, look - here's one going for another!
OK, maybe they were courting, but there was certainly some chasing going on!
It's a Green Veined White (thanks to Steve Wheatley of Butterfly Conservation for help with the ID).

Anyway, the butterfly I was most pleased to see is not rare, it's just one I've never seen before in the wood: the Painted Lady
These were taken out in the wayleave, where there's the combination of lots of sunlight and also Bluebells. I guess when the Bluebells finish soon there'll be other flowers out for them to feed on. Also out there were several Orange Tips. Again not rare, but very striking:
A quick mention must go to the Speckled Yellow Moth - there's lots of these around in the wayleave, but I like this photo as you can see its eyes clearly, and they look different to normal butterfly eyes I think (click on the picture for a larger version):
In the same patch was a Brimstone - I can get pictures of them now I know where they are feeding!
Further down the wayleave were several Small WhitesThey seemed to prefer the Blue Bugle to the Bluebells:
I like the last one, where you can see its proboscis going into the flower to get some nectar.

Here's a couple of pictures of a Large White. They're not particularly good photos, but I wanted to show the different markings to the Small White. They all look very similar from a distance, but once you know what you're looking for you can tell them apart (we're still learning though...).
And finally, the Speckled Wood, which is enjoying flying around the edges of where we coppiced last winter:
Several types of White are also deep inside the wood now, thanks to our wildlife corridor, as is the Brimstone, Comma and Peacock.

That's all for now, another post tomorrow to finish off...

Mike

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