08/06/2018 - Maryport
The weather forecast for Friday was a bit iffy, so in the morning I went for a long bike ride (actually not that long, but in the Cumbrian hills you feel like you've gone twice as far!). About halfway round the sun came out, so I spent the ride home weighing up options for the afternoon! I plumped for Small Blues - with only one site (that I know of) in Yorkshire, and that a very recent, unofficial reintroduction, I figured this to be my best chance to connect with this delightful species in 2018.
There are three main colonies in the North Lakes, two within sight of each other along the coastline at Workington and Maryport and a third further south at Whitehaven. I opted for the Maryport site, which is slightly less industrial! I'd not visited before but had a pretty clear idea of where to look. At the site entrance, I quickly located a small patch of Kidney Vetch - and no sooner had I done so than a Small Blue flew in and settled there! I spent an hour or so walking through the site and saw good numbers of Small Blues, many still quite fresh. Lovely!
This female had a perfect beak-mark in her hind-wing from an earlier brush with death. There was a male Stonechat holding station in the middle of the colony, so I wondered whether it was his beak!
I took a series of this female performing the much-discussed 'wing-roll' behaviour - I've turned it into a gif which I'll try and put into the relevant thread later. Here she is mid-roll:
09/06/2018 - mostly moths!
We were up in the high fells for much of today - amazing views but few butterflies! The hazy conditions meant a couple of Small Heaths were more approachable than usual.
In the late afternoon the sun came out and we headed up the lane behind the house to check out a colony of Chimney-sweeper moths. I first spotted the moths here on my bike ride yesterday but wanted to try and establish how large the colony was. Quite good numbers, but confined to a stretch of road verge of only 20 metres or so.
Finally, I just had to share this Beautiful Golden Y we trapped last night!