Sunday 27 July 2008

Powder blue

Loads of moths once more, but this sunny weekend is also proving marvellous for butterflies. Here's a Holly Blue which inspected us at lunchtime. It was joined in our Leeds garden by a Comma (the same bright, orangey-brown as fritillaries), Ringlets, Meadow Browns, Gatekeepers, Green-Veined Whites, Small Whites, Speckled Woods, Tortoiseshells and an enormous orange dragonfly. We had supper outside and at 9.30pm, when it was still very light, a Swallowtailed moth appeared and did some erratic loops and jinks as though drunk or only just woken up. Aeronautical engineers must draw interesting conclusions from the flight patterns of butterflies - mostly comparatively leisurely although sometimes very swift and powerful, and moths which tend to hurtle about all over the place.

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

Hi Martin,
just discovered your blog. How do you do so well? I live just down the valley in Thackley and trap dismally small numbers. I used to trap many more years ago but the numbers have dropped off. There must be less moths around here now or the ones I trapped years ago are still living, remember my trap and avoid it!!
Norman alvin

MartinWainwright said...

Hi Norman - That's very interesting about the difference over such a short distance. Mind you, an awful lot of my catch at the mo is made up of what I ignorantly refer to as 'yellow underwings'. What kind of trap do you have? Mine is the Robinson one which is very good - in fact you may be able to see its glow from Thackley. Btw I'm planning to highlight Christine's excellent Open Air School book in Yorks Life. Anyway, it's v nice to have a Comment which are a lot rare than moths...