{"id":3832,"date":"2019-07-12T17:54:17","date_gmt":"2019-07-12T17:54:17","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.marfell.me.uk\/wordpress\/?p=3832"},"modified":"2019-07-19T19:34:04","modified_gmt":"2019-07-19T19:34:04","slug":"shipley-butterfly-meadow","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.marfell.me.uk\/wordpress\/shipley-butterfly-meadow\/","title":{"rendered":"Shipley Butterfly Meadow"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

On Monday, after asking for permission, I spent some time peering into the Shipley Station Butterfly Meadow. The place was teeming with Burnet Moths.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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5 Spot Burnet Moth<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

The most common seemed to be the 5 Spot Burnet Moth.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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6 Spot Burnet Moth<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

6 Spot Burnet Moths were also feeding on the plentiful Knapweed. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

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They have long tongues to reach down into the flowers. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Many of the plant stems still had the cocoons on them and some of the moths looked as though they had only just emerged.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Mating Burnet Moths<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

The imperitive is then to feed, mate and lay eggs; and by the looks of it not necessarily in that order.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Mating Burnet Moths<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

I am making a bit of an assumption with this photo in saying that this is a 2nd male getting in on the act. Given that this is the sort of behaviour seen in many species I think I might be making a safe assumption.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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It looks as though 5 and 6 Spot Burnet Moths are happy feeding next to each other.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Female Common Blue Butterfly<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

There is not much blue on the female Common Blue butterfly so I was quite pleased to spot this. They are tiny. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Underwing of Common Blue<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

The patterning on the male and female Common Blue is similar but they are slightly different colours. The male has more blue closer to the body and the female is more clearly brown and orange like this one<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Meadow Brown<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

I also spotted a couple of other larger butterflies flitting about but I haven’t got the knack of identifying quickly moving ones but I did manage to point my camera at one of them and find that it was a Meadow Brown – at least that is what I think it is.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Several other little creatures were around – Bees and flies which I didn’t photograph. But I did take some of Harlequin Pupae, various spot Harlequins, and a little wasp(??), all of which you can see in the gallery below.<\/p>\n\n\n\n