Cheers for the ID correctionPaul
Cheers Neil
![Very Happy :D](./images/smilies/icon_biggrin.gif)
This one was flat out basking otherwise I'd never have found it
Lulworth Cove 01-08-2013
Finally we got some good weather and despite waking once again in a cloud I could see that the mist was soon going to burn up and so we headed to Lulworth Cove. I can assure you that this wasn’t my suggestion imagine my surprise when my wife said that that’s where we were going!
We drew up in the car park and I had to try and conceal my desire to check out the small filed at the top of the car park by the path to Durdle Door. Instead we made a move directly to the beach so I checked out the Butterfly garden near the toilets while the girls visited them. A Comma joined the many whites floating about the place and then a DGF! I couldn’t believe it and I couldn’t get my camera out quick enough so it shot away.
Once down on the pebbles we settled down and the girls did a bit of paddling and digging in the small areas of sand so I took my first sortie. The right hand side of the Cove swings round sharply into the cliffs and the beach ends abruptly. Here there is a little steep path up the cliff to the more rolling grasses on top. I took this path last year and half way found Lulworths, Small Skipper ovi-positing and a faded Small Cooper. This year however things weren’t living up to expectations and it was only when I got to the top that I started seeing butterflies. They were of course Lulworth Skippers looking a little faded and aged but Lulworths none the less. Since last year I’d forgotten how small they were and also how gregarious. When you see two Smessex Skippers it either a prelude to breeding, a rebuff or a fight over a females/territory/”cos youse looked at me funny”, but with Lulworths even when there was one on its own another 2 or 3 weren’t far away! There were other butterflies amongst the grasses here and I include a couple of shots to break up the Lulworth Skipper fest but I went a little bit Lulworth crazy – snapping away at any little group of them!
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All too soon my 20 minutes was up and so I bounced down the path back to the beach with the girls so we could have a paddle and do some rock pooling around one side of the Cove. Even here just sitting back watching the girls splashing and paddling butterflies went past over the sea with a Gatekeeper and another DGF! While I was rock pooling with my older daughter a Marbled White alighted on the seaweed briefly – and I cursed that I didn’t have my camera (rocks, slippy seaweed and seawater not happy bedfellows of cameras).
After lunch we headed back down to the Cove and got another space on an even smaller bit of beach. The girls were happy making a castle out of some of the only available sand in the cove. No messing about from my girls; who dragged massive pebbles up the beach to make the foundations, covered it and smoothed it with wet sand and then knocked the castle down to make a swimming pool. Chuckling over their antics I took another walk up the side of the Cove...This time I took to ambling along the narrow paths that clung to the side of the Cove. There were small patches of Thistles that acted as butterfly magnets with Marbled Whites, Meadow Browns, Gatekeepers and three species of Skipper all feeding on them. I carefully pushed my way past some of them that overhung the path and then settled down for 10 minutes or so to watch a se what it produced. Again I was amazed at the sociable nature of the Lulworths. It meant that at a glance you could have a rough idea of which Skipper you were watching. One on its own for more than 3 seconds was probably a Smessex, more than one definitely a Lulworth. It also seemed form my brief observations that the minute something else landed on a flower head the Lulworths would move off. This might be because the other butterfly was bigger as in the case with a Meadow Brown but I also saw it happen when an Essex Skipper landed (so they are here Willrow
![Wink :wink:](./images/smilies/icon_wink.gif)
).
I carried on my way and saw a crazy sight – loads of people all on the clifftop of the Cove, having squeezed through barbed wire. Muppets! Shaking my head in disbelief I carried on sticking to the unrestricted and well worn paths and as I was making my way back down something orangey buzzed me. I thought at first that it could be a DGF but it was smaller and the flight was wrong, reminding me of something else? I followed it as it flew round below me before dropping back down and landing on the path just below me. I could see that it was a Wall Brown but the problem I had was getting to it. Using the path I was on would mean either spooking it or splatting it under foot so I had to run all the way round, down the other path and then stealthily back up to where it was sitting on the path. I managed a few shots and then it was off again but landing up near the Thistles. The problem I had now was similar in that the quickest route to the butterfly would spook and unsettled it as well as it being face-on so now I had to run my previous circuit backwards. I say run because I could see some other walkers approaching. I made it in time and got some nice side on closed wing shots which complement those open wing shots from earlier in the year. Hot, sweaty and with calves of steel from all that cliff running I headed back down happy to the enjoy the girls swimming pool with one brief stop-off for what I think is male Lulworth but it’s so worn I’m not sure
![Confused :?](./images/smilies/icon_confused.gif)
.
![458 - Copy-001.JPG (187.98 KiB) Viewed 1123 times They are there Willrow](./files/thumb_9821_c1dbaa83a1c7f99457fae8065da51f0b)
- They are there Willrow
![487 - Copy-001.JPG (207.82 KiB) Viewed 1123 times Muppets!](./files/thumb_9821_e3a4ff5d73e4e176805c3031a91938d6)
- Muppets!
Time was up and we had to make a move back to the camp so we could get showered before the block got busy. Despite the rushed nature of the outing and not getting to that top part of the car park I was immensely happy to have reacquainted myself with the Lulworth Skipper! Stunning scenery, the feeling of being home, how small and sociable they are – my favourite Butterfly
![Very Happy :D](./images/smilies/icon_biggrin.gif)
!
Have a goodun
Wurzel