{"id":1398,"date":"2009-07-31T07:00:40","date_gmt":"2009-07-31T14:00:40","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/janewheeler.co.uk\/blog\/2009\/07\/31\/butterfly-summer\/"},"modified":"2009-07-31T08:17:21","modified_gmt":"2009-07-31T15:17:21","slug":"butterfly-summer","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/janewheeler.co.uk\/blog\/blog\/2009\/07\/31\/butterfly-summer\/","title":{"rendered":"butterfly summer"},"content":{"rendered":"

we may not be having the promised barbecue summer but it’s definitely a good butterfly one. today I took my camera out and tried to photograph all the butterflies I could see. they are shy and not easy to catch in frame unless totally absorbed in a plant full of nectar-loaded flowers; also my lumix display is hard to see with sunglasses and my aged eyes really need reading specs – oh for a viewfinder!<\/p>\n

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right outside the house three painted ladies were feasting on the neighbour’s lavender. I wonder how many generations these are away from those that arrived on a wave of warm air from Africa in May.<\/p>\n

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up the road, on thistles\u00a0 growing next to the old gravel pit, there were more painted ladies. you can just see the butterfly’s tongue (lengua de mariposa ) extended to reach down one of the tiny elongate thistle flowers.<\/p>\n

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some flowers have nectar, and others apparently don’t. these field violets smother the ground where I walked between the beans and the beet across the field, having replaced the pretty striped columbine there a few weeks ago, and not an insect in sight.<\/p>\n

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more thistles next to the wood; two peacocks, a comma, a field brown and a small white feeding. commas are supposed to be common, but this is only the second I have spotted this year.<\/p>\n

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commas have such a lovely shape, and their bright oranges catch the eye.<\/p>\n

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this peacock was sunning itself and the light reflects on his wings. seen from underneath as they fly overhead they look dark brown.<\/p>\n

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nearby a small tortoiseshell posed for me.<\/p>\n

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the field browns are even more difficult to photograph, they flit about in a mercurial fashion and hardly ever stay still.<\/p>\n

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in the shade of the wood a huge burdock plant was attracting a lot of large and small whites.<\/p>\n

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walking up the green lane small clouds of butterflies danced overhead and avoided my camera. here the hemp agrimony flowers kept a peacock and a honey bee well occupied. you can see how dark the peacock’s underside is, even with the sun shining on its wings.<\/p>\n

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a female field brown paused in the foliage long enough for this photo.<\/p>\n

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and another, feeding on a thistle.<\/p>\n

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the margin of field and green lane; a haven for insects, especially as this farmer uses as few chemicals as possible.<\/p>\n

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rosebay willow herb; full of white butterflies until I approach and they all fly up.<\/p>\n

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a white stands to attention on a fleabane flower.<\/p>\n

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and a painted lady appears to be hiding from me in the shade.<\/p>\n

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I was pleased to catch this speckled wood, they are fast flying and don’t feed on flowers.<\/p>\n

along the verges of Clip street, cut a few weeks ago, there are few flowers and only some gatekeepers and high-flying large whites appeared; the gatekeepers were too busy arguing to settle or stay in one place and impossible to photograph.<\/p>\n

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the sharrington road pond is surrounded by teasels, wonderful sculptural plants. as we passed a family of moorhens scurried across the pondweed for shelter; the little ones are turning from balls of black fluff into half-size fluffy moorhens.<\/p>\n

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at home the new buddhlia flowers are starting to attract peacocks, but I have not seen a red admiral yet. the\u00a0 bushes were cut back so severely in November\u00a0 that the flowers are coming later than usual. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

we may not be having the promised barbecue summer but it’s definitely a good butterfly one. today I took my camera out and tried to photograph all the butterflies I could see. they are shy and not easy to catch in frame unless totally absorbed in a plant full of nectar-loaded flowers; also my lumix […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2},"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[6],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1398","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-walks"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p4GKTU-my","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/janewheeler.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1398","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/janewheeler.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/janewheeler.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/janewheeler.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/janewheeler.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1398"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/janewheeler.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1398\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/janewheeler.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1398"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/janewheeler.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1398"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/janewheeler.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1398"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}