By the watermeadows

[puddleshark]

Peacock (Aglais io). Quite easy to remember the scientific name of this one, if you pronounce it "eye-oh".




The treacle-black outer wings of the Peacock, perfect tree bark camouflage, first line of defence when the butterfly is hibernating through the winter. The second line of defence is to flash open its wings, revealing huge eyes and a silhouette evolved to resemble a Little Owl, "simultaneously rubbing the forewings and hindwings together to produce a warning hiss from the friction between elevated veins at the base of each surface. This is easy to induce if you lunge at a resting Peacock, and the sound is starling enough to human ears. The shock to a mouse must be severe..." The Butterflies of Britain & Ireland Jeremy Thomas & Richard Lewington.

***

Couldn't venture out far this morning. Today is not a good day for driving. It's Sunday, it's the summer holidays, and the sun is shining. By ten in the morning, the traffic on the coast road was solid, nose-to-tail, crawling slowly towards the beach. By four o'clock this afternoon, the tide will turn, and the traffic will all be pouring back the way it came, meeting along the way traffic from 30,000 festival-goers leaving Camp Bestival.

So instead I took a walk through the watermeadows, which are still very wet indeed - remarkably so for July - but the path is just about passable with some leaping from tussock to tussock. Butterflies on the Ragwort, bees on the Marsh Thistles, Sedge Warblers scolding from the reeds in the drainage channels. A few Common Darter and Keeled Skimmer dragonflies on the wing.


Marsh Thistle (Cirsium palustre). Of upright character, and unforgiving, but fond of bees.




Pignut, Spearwort and Ragwort growing among the rushes and the rough grass.




Wall (Lasiommata megera).

Comments

[heleninwales]

Well be avoiding Barmouth and the road to the coast from now until September.

What lovely butterfly photos. I've seen very few this year, though we don't tend to get many locally.

[puddleshark]

I can't imagine why anyone would want to drive to Barmouth when you could take the train!

It seems to be quite a good year for butterflies, fingers crossed. The only species I'm not seeing is Small Tortoiseshell, but their population has crashed due to a parasitic fly, and the mild winter will not have done them any favours.

[zenigotchas]

Oh there's a butterfly that resembles an owl when it defends itself? This will contribute nicely to my current owl obsession then.

[puddleshark]

Butterfly impersonating an owl! Well, it might be more convincing to a mouse...

[zenigotchas]

Holy shit the butterfly's body looks like a beak which makes it beautifully convincing. (˚0˚)!!