Wednesday 15 September 2010

Stout Cortez



Www stands for warm, wet and windy in this neck of the woods. Http therefore stands for halt to the proceedings. No trapping possible, but my older son and daughter-in-law Tom and Abi have come to the rescue with a bag of insect treasures from the Yucatan. We're planning to go out and see them both in Mexico some time before the Spring and the pictures are an extra incentive, specially on a day such as it is in Leeds today. How stout Cortez ever persuaded his men to leave the beaches (above) and march west is a puzzle, specially as there is no record of them having a moth trap. Mind you, T & A haven't got one either. Mexican wildlife seems happy to pose. Our visit may coincide with the famed migration of the Monarch butterfly, the only one to make the vast journeys normally associated with birds, but it's Tom and Abi we're really going to see. Honest.











I've had a brief but so far unsuccessful stab at identifying these and will persist. But any help from experts, Mexican or otherwise, would be welcome. Later: I'm pretty sure the orange butterfly is Dryas iulia, the Julia Helicon. It 'flies rapidly in forest clearing' according to Google, so well snapped Tom!

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