Take it away skipper!

1: North Cave

Nothing much about bird-wise within reasonable distance, Barry and I decided to go to North Cave. I immediately thought butterflies and dragons! 

Here's some of what we saw.

A gatekeeper was my first photo of the day: those white spots are diagnostic even though it refused to spread its wings for me. Gatekeeper Here's another one that was a bit more showy. The dark patches on the forewing are the male sex brand. Gatekeeper For reasons unknown I'm always fascinated by skippers. Perhaps it's the fun of trying to differentiate the Small from the Essex, if you know what I mean. Three Smalls below. Small Skipper Small Skipper Small Skipper

This is large skipper as far as I can tell. Skipper Essex Skipper Essex Skipper Meadow brown females are more colourful than the males. Meadow Brown Damselflies are another id puzzle sometimes. This is common blue damselfly. Common Blue Damselfly Common Blue Damselfly Common Blue Damselfly

Four spot chaser dragonfly. Four-spot Chaser Finally from North Cave, here's an empress [emperor dragonfly] ovipositing. She's laying eggs too!! Emperor Dragonfly

We spent a long time at North Cave so decided to finish the day at Kiplingcotes Chalk Pit YWT - a great place for butterflies.

2: Kiplingcotes Chalk Pit

As we left the car park to walk the 350 yards to the reserve we saw a marbled white straightaway.

Nice little game to play with these photos. Apart from the obvious main character, in most pictures you can find other insects. Can you spot them all? For example there are little black beetles in the knapweed along with the butterfly.

Marbled White

More marbled whites [and friends]. Marbled White Marbled White

Marbled White Marbled White Marbled White Marbled White Commas. Comma Comma Punctuation mark showing well!

Comma Rather worn common blue. Common Blue Meadow brown and six-spot burnet moths. Meadow Brown & Burnet Moth

The hover-fly is episyrphus balteatus but has no common name.

More six-spots. Burnet Moths

Pyramidal orchid with another tiny beetle.

Pyramidal Orchid Close-up. Tiny beetle on Pyramidal Orchid Time for the skippers. They are all small or large skippers - so no Essex skippers found today. Small Skipper Small Skipper Small Skipper Small Skipper This is a large skipper- note the wing patterning.

Large Skipper Large Skipper Large Skipper Back to small skippers. Small Skipper The diagonal black line on the lower butterfly is its sex brand - showing it to be a male.

Small Skipper

Burnet Moths Finally a ringlet and a gatekeeper feeding on origanum. Ringlet Gatekeeper