Scozmo's Photery

Every year in the UK, we have the Big Butterfly Count managed by Butterfly Conservation as a Citizen Science survey during which more than 60k people across the country report their sightings on the BBC app. I’ve been taking part for a couple of years now but my interest has been piqued more now by living in the countryside, more of us need to be aware of, take note of all the nature around us and switch off a little to all the tech that governs so many lives today!

I took part this year on Monday 21st and will probably do a few more counts as the week progresses, I’d hoped to get out over the weekend but it was pretty miserable out there for most of it and Monday was ……… drier I guess is the best description.

The weather was the now usual mixed forecast, probably, but might….. so I wore a t-shirt and light waterproof jacket (mistake) and off I walked. I ought to add we are in Clegg or Horse fly season at the moment here so I’m lathered in Skin-So-Soft which works to keep them away ….. mostly, sneaky wee beggars, you don’t feel them landing on you but you certainly do when then dip into your skin!!! I HATE them!

The Common Horse fly

Anyway, off I go, usual route, out to the barns, in between and round the back then down the lane and see where it takes me today, I’m only going to do the butterflies on this page and other beasties on another, there were a lot!

As far as white butterflies go, they all look the same to me, some bigger than others but that means very little, once they land though you can actually tell them apart ….. mostly.

By the way, I created a Flickr group to house all the BBC images anyone may want to share

A Large White, right behind the barns.

There are Green-veined Whites everywhere here as well.

Another hugely common butterfly here is the Ringlet

A lot of these butterflies vary in colouration quite a lot, yet again making ID more difficult, although some just stand out!

That’s a Comma trying to hide from me and not a great view of it so here’s a better one with background information

I’ll use a couple of shots of the Green-veined White here to show the variations.

The dark wing markings on the first one above really threw me but, that’s the way they are …… varied!

I spotted a few Meadow Browns down towards the lower half of the lane. One thing I am noticing is that some definitely have habitat preferences, as I walk the lane I go from a farm yard, down a hill with a wild flower planted bank, past a burn and reed beds, through mixed, mostly deciduous woodland to several ponds with very varied surroundings, currently planted with wild flowers.

There are a good few Speckled Wood around, in the woods, oddly enough 😉

When I first recorded them it was queried, being out of their usual range? It obviously isn’t any more 🙂

My favourite at the moment is the Small Copper, they’re tiny and gorgeous, rarely see them up by the house but saw a few down by the ponds.

Caught a bonus bug win the background of that one! I actually went out again yesterday with a shorter lens!!! Scary!

What if??????????????

I didn’t. 🙂

Down by the ponds there was a plethora (I love that word) of Damsel and Dragonflies but I”ll share another page for those.

On the way back up the hill I started seeing Peacocks (butterflies)

Why do I get the feeling that WP doesn’t like me embedding my photos (from Flickr)? Having real snags trying to write this today, images keep disappearing or not appearing at all!!!

I guess they’d prefer I bought more media space right?

Small Tortoiseshells have been around in abundance too, there’s a patch of these Thistles not far from our gate and they, among others have been all over them.

A few Painted Lady have also been hanging around the same patch, as well as the wild flower bank.

I often wonder about the names we have given the birds & beasties!?

Anyway, apart from the number of shots I actually took, that was my butterfly walk on the 21st which turned out to be a very mixed weather day and I may have lost a few pounds hiking back up the hill with my waterproof jacket on. (Keeps the Horse flies off my arms too)

The only other butterfly I recorded but didn’t get a shot of on the walk was the Red Admiral so here’s a shot from June 🙂

And that was my walk, 2.65 miles in hot n sweaty weather and over 60 butterflies recorded, I didn’t record everything I saw and couldn’t ID.

So, hope you liked my butterfly walk and I’ll see you soon for the “others” I saw.

patch photos