Ring of Fire

Can you see the ring of fire that inspired my title?

This is my butterfly from a few days back, the first of November. It is a Red Admiral, Vanessa atalanta. Not really a British butterfly at all it is a summer migrant, flying in from Southern Europe and North Africa in the spring and early summer and returning home in the autumn. Well that is how it used to be.

If you Google for the UK Red Admiral you will learn that very rarely it will overwinter in the extreme south of England. Well that is also how it used to be.

You have got a little something on your nose there.

This might turn into a post about climate change. If I asked you for your childhood recollections of October 24th , say from the 1960’s you probably would not remember anything specific but if I changed that date to November the 5th… People in the UK would have no trouble at all recalling that exact day, forty or fifty years ago. It is Bonfire Night.

I don’t have any specific memories of my own childhood birthdays but I can recall the excitement of bonfire night fifty years ago. It was a night of duffle coats and scarves and woollen gloves. Sparklers,  red faces in the firelight and baked potatoes, it was cold.

I have just been reading on the RSPB website that Red Admirals can be seen until October and very rarely into November. When Fizz and I go out this afternoon if the sun is shining we will see Red Admirals. It isn’t rare any more and they will overwinter here in Gloucestershire.

Times have changed and winter is warm.

The last few days the weather has been really fantastic here. Well, it has been cold, with lots of sunshine but we have also had sudden downpours of very heavy rain and then hailstones and then more sunshine. It is very lively and I am really enjoying it.

It is nice that it is cold enough to wear a coat out and that is useful when the rain comes over but I have not even thought about wearing gloves yet, it isn’t that cold.

I have chosen my butterfly photographs today to focus on that ring of fire, I think that it is lovely 🙂

I am going to be keeping a close eye on the insects as we head toward winter. A friend has been asking about Dragonfly sightings. The Migrant Hawker is often seen well into November and I might do a post about that one soon. I would like to see one for myself.

There are some really good Dragonfly spots around here but we need a sunny day and I need Fizz to get a clean bill of health. I am pretty sure that she is not in season and a mistake has been made, that is good because I can take her to public places but I need her owner to confirm that and that she is happy for me to take her out.

The second dog in this video, Buddy, is a male. Can you see why I don’t think she is in season?

There is just nothing in her behaviour to suggest such a thing.

So you sort yourself out and then we can go and look for insects. Okay?

I apologise for my absence over the last couple of days. A prolonged power cut meant that I lost most of yesterday but also I have had a lot to do getting the farm straightened out for my landlords return 🙂

I will be around to visit you shortly.

With Fizz.

One Last Butterfly?

We have had some lovely weather just recently but this morning when I took Fizz out the sun was shining and it felt cool. T-shirt,  shirt and body warmer on at mid-day, I think that the summer is fading.

So let us not waste a drop of it.

The Red Admiral has frustrated me all summer, I saw plenty but just couldn’t get close and then I got close today. The Ivy seduced the poor animal and it was helpless to resist me.

This animal didn’t mind what I did. It was the one that we all look for. I put my camera down and looked closely with my eyes and I felt in awe of it’s beauty. I could probably have picked it up but I didn’t think of that, anyway it was busy.

The Red Admiral is a wonderful subject to use when discussing butterfly anatomy because of it’s colour. As a brush footed butterfly the hairs on it’s brush feet stand out, it has the best labial palps of any butterfly that I know and it’s probiscus and antennae are pretty cute too but I don’t feel up to doing butterfly anatomy tonight. I am just drinking in a beauty.

Anybody who wants to use my photographs to help to explain to their own audience is more than welcome to do so.

So anyway this butterfly wasn’t comatose and it flitted around all over the place but it didn’t mind me following.

It is just an insect but I think that I am blessed to know an insect.

Thank you very much for the pictures. Yeah, yeah, you will be a star now, I have just got to talk to those connections that I told you about. Don’t worry it just takes time. Thanks for the pics. 🙂

You were beautiful.

Peacock Butterflies (1)

I am going to be a bit tied up for the next day or two. No I haven’t got a new girlfriend, my Butterflies are starting to emerge.

Yesterday I looked at the chrysalis’s  and they looked like this.

Today they had changed.

The first one is out. Don’t worry about the picture quality just now, I will sort that out. They are on paper and I can move them into better light. For now this one is right at the back of a cupboard on an overcast day so it is a bit poor quality.

There are thirty two chrysalis. I knew that when one started to go that would be the signal that the rest would follow, they all moulted at the same time. I have just been back to check on the first one and as I looked in a second emerged right in front of me. It is a great thing to see. I will video it for you.

A whole bunch of them stuck themselves to the nettles, they are easy to move around

As the nettles died the leaves started to fall off. This is the only chrysalis that has come off. When I was cleaning out around them I took this one out and put it on my kitchen table. It started leaping around like a Mexican Jumping Bean. I never knew they were concious and capable of movement in this state.

Well this is a badly written and badly photographed post but bear with me, things are going to get a lot clearer and you will see some beautiful things.

Now I have to take Shaun the Sheep for a little walk. The day is getting on, I hope they don’t all emerge in the night.

Female Gatekeeper Butterfly

This is the female Gatekeeper.

But that picture won’t do. With her wings closed she looks just like a male Gatekeeper. For the last two weeks I have been trying to get those open wing shots. Yesterday I came this close.

I have snuck up on her. This is the same Butterfly as the first picture. She is comfortable with my presence. The sun is shining and any moment now she is going to open her wings and bask in the  warm rays. I am perfectly positioned for the shot that I want and she doesn’t mind. Nothing can go wrong and then…

This happens.

You stupid, stupid Butterfly! She doesn’t want your attention. (That is a male pestering my female)

Clear off! We are trying to do a photo shoot here!

That will not do for an open wing shot.

Grrrr….

I was so close. Sometimes Butterflies can be really frustrating.

I got the shots today.

I will just show you the male first.

The dark “smutty” marks on his fore wings are called “sex brands” they are specialised scales on the wing that emit a scent to attract the females. The female obviously doesn’t have them.

Female Gatekeeper, Pyronia tithonus

The Most Beautiful Butterfly in the World (Not)

The Meadow Brown

There is nothing actually wrong with this Butterfly except that this is the one that I find the hardest of all the Butterflies to approach. I think it has a jumped up idea of it’s own specialness.

I wouldn’t mind if it was rare but it is the most common Butterfly in the UK. I wouldn’t mind if it was exceptionally beautiful but…. well, judge for yourself.

That is a male and it is an old photograph.

(I decided to use some old photographs in this post because, I am hardly likely to want to do another post about Meadow Browns am I?)

I am being a little bit unfair here, the female is a bit more colourful and she is actually quite nice to look at and the most beautiful thing of all is their name Maniola jurtina.

I just wish that they would allow me to get close enough to show people how beautiful they really are. Here is a female that I shot this morning.

Here are some older pictures, they don’t change much over the years.

It really is quite a lovely Butterfly and deserves to have posts written about it……..It’s just Him…..

 

Ringlet Butterfly

Before the weather turned nasty I walked Fizz and I got these shots of a Ringlet. This Butterfly is a little bit faded and worn but probably the best we can hope for now. Flight time for these Butterflies is mid June until the beginning of August. Apart from the short time when they are an egg they spend most of the year as a caterpillar. From around about now until next June they will be crawling around on a variety of grasses being larvae and of course this one hibernates as a caterpillar.

Female Common Blue Butterfly

After yesterday’s post about the male of the species Emily asked how  you tell the sexes apart and as it happens I did photograph a female yesterday as well as the male and it is raining today so here we go.

This was our male Butterfly.

This was the female taken at the same time as the picture above.

 

The amount of brown on the upper side of the wing can vary quite a lot but I think that this colour is pretty typical this next picture is another female taken several years ago. It is about the same colour.

This last picture is the very same species, female Common Blue Butterfly taken just less than two weeks ago. This one was exceptionally blue and perfect, I don’t see many like this.

Anyway since I started following Emily’s blog (where you can learn a lot about Bee keeping) I have revised my plan to keep Bees in my kitchen cupboard when the Butterflies go  and I am now considering Spiders 🙂

What’s a Clouded Yellow?

An immigrant species from North Africa. Not especially uncommon, sometimes you get really good years and they are everywhere but I have never photographed them. I have seen them about but not when  I had a camera handy.

This is a female. She is really beautiful when she opens her wings. Golden yellow with a black border. These pictures today are just a tease.

This is the new mission. There is an added problem this time. These Butterflies always settle with their wings closed, you only see them open in flight. We have got to have those open wing shots.

Green-veined White

This little Butterfly is not damaged… Yet. He is playing fast and loose with those beautiful wings amongst the Thistles.

Green-veined White, Pieris napi.

A Merry Dance

Last week I had the chance to photograph the Common Blues that I have used as the header image. Since then I have been after some open wing pictures.

I went out early to try and catch them but finding them wasn’t easy. I think that the two that I photographed are the only two in that meadow 🙂

These pictures are the best that I could get today and getting these took me two hours but I did get a few other little butterflies while I was searching for this one.

This is the female, the male will be much bluer when we get him.

That is a good start. Isn’t she beautiful?

Animal Magic

“Just like that”

It’s your destiny

The Swallows have fledged, or at least they are fledging. They are still in the nest today but they have been out and they can fly.

It has taken me a few days watching and all that you get are a couple of short video’s but for me, my understanding and the pleasure that I got from watching them makes a few days just a drop in the ocean. It was time well spent.

Anyway you should be glad that you don’t have to watch the whole twenty hours of video, that I now have to sort and delete from my machine to free up space.

Here are the best bits.

Yesterday morning there were five birds on the nest, there were five birds on the nest and then there were four birds on the nest. I had missed the very first flight and only realised when number five returned to the nest.

This first video starts with the mother calling for them to leave the nest, there is a little comic interlude of the way that they follow flies, their little heads bobbing in unison and in the last bit the second bird to approach the nest is the returning chick. Does he bring food back or do the others just think that he has?

This next video shows them leaving the nest and returning. They spent most of the day fluttering around inside the little alley way that has become their home and by the end of the day they were all settled back on the nest but this is fledging. Today I think that they have ventured outside and seen the blue sky but they still return to the nest.

These birds have made me think a lot about nature as a whole thing and about life and death in the wild. The caterpillars that I am trying to raise are falling to the parasitoid flies that these Swallows depend on for food and survival. The parents have done a really good job of raising them given the wet weather we have been having. I have often looked out in the pouring rain and wondered how they are managing to raise a brood and now this, flight.

I am so in in love and in awe of them and so damned jealous.

I am jealous because they get to eat those delicious crunchy flies, or perhaps because they can raise offspring in a matter of weeks and not the 26 years it usually takes us. Maybe I am jealous of something else altogether…..