Wednesday 24 July 2013

STERF Butterfly Survey July 2013

This month's butterfly survey was in complete contrast to the previous couple of months. We can report a plentiful supply of Gatekeeper....

.....Easy to spot, but not easy to count when there are Ragwort plants in the area and each stem covered with the creatures!

Ringlet were also there in number...

As were Marbled White...

It was encouraging to see the healthy number of Silver-washed Fritillary...

And a number of  *Large Skipper (Ochlodes venatus). Colin took this captivating shot of one in the flower of a Convolvulus...

When we looked back to July's survey for 2012 we noticed a striking similarity with today's results. Maybe things aren't all that bad in the Butterfly world!

* Thanks to Susan (see comments) for the ID.

2 comments:

Susan said...

Must get out there and do mine...

I think your skipper must be a Large Skipper Ochlodes venatus -- there's too much patterning visible on the underside for a Small. The pattern seems to match a Large better than a female Silver-spotted.

Colin and Elizabeth said...

Thanks, Susan, for the ID. Having looked at the photo carefully, I see what you mean. It was so good to see such large numbers of butterflies after the last few months!