firstly though i went down to the lower terrace to see if any late high brown fritillarys were still on the wing , but as i got to the lower path this butterfly landed infriont of me, at first i had no idea what it was. dont think i have ever seen the underwing of a Painted lady , Vanessa cardui. i managed to get flat on the ground to get a few shots before she flew off! stunningly beautiful! it has been a very poor year for this species, only spotted a few all year!
After a long search around the bracken i soon found a few high brown fritillarys , one feeding with nice back lighting
And then a rather co-operative specimen that was quite happy to pose on my finger!!!! wow!
a few common blues that looked recently emerged finished off this part of the day
Then i made my way over to the northern slopes to see if any Scotch argus ,Erebia aethiops had started to emerge.
this is a view from the area looking towards the cumbrian fells.
Luckily after just a few minutes looking i found a newly emerged scotch argus, absolutely stunning !
yet another new species for the year #36 Wow!
This one was still drying its wings!
And a finger shot to end with !
They are such a wonderful rare butterfly, it was great to photograph a couple of pristine specimens , unfortunately as with all very dark species they fade quite quickly with age.
and to finish off the arnside adventures, a few shots of a Northern Brown Argus , Aricia artaxerxes. shot on the southern slopes .
Female egg laying
The egg shot at x5 magnification with mpe-65 macro lens and cropped!
This ends the Arnside knott adventures for this year, the next butterfly adventure will be .......The elusive BROWN HAIRSTREAK !
Thanks for the very informative post, sure was a productive day. We are amazed by the amount of butterflies and activity.
ReplyDelete