Butterflies, butterflies, butterflies

As you may have seen from the press recently, the is an ongoing invasion of Painted Lady (vanessa cardui) butterflies crossing our shores from Europe. These butterflies have had an exceptional early breeding season in North Africa and are invading in numbers not seen since 1996.

Yesterday I went to Sand Point on the north Somerset coast near Weston-Super-Mare to watch some of this migration myself. In 30 minutes I saw more than twelve Painted Ladys passing through or feeding on the local flowers.

I didn't stop to photograph the Painted Ladys I will save that for a little later in the summer when the next brood of fresh, pristine adults emerge. I did photograph some other gems though. Walking on the lower slopes, I found this beautiful Cream Spot Tiger moth (arctia villica) a moth I haven't seen for thirty years.

The other photographs - the ones that I was after are of a butterfly that only exists in a couple of locations in the UK, Sand Point and locations around the Isle of Wight. The colony of Glanville Fritillaries (melitaea cinxa) at Sand Point are an introduction that seemed to have dissapeared during the 1990's but have reappeared in some numbers now.