Wednesday 12 October 2011

Arnside Knot Butterflys july 2011 pt3

The final part of the arnside knott butterfly adventures,   i travelled up to hopefully see yet another new species, the  Scotch Argus, a very rare butterfly only found in scotland and at arnside in cumbria.  a late species emerging end july early august.

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 ! 

1 comment:

  1. Thanks for the very informative post, sure was a productive day. We are amazed by the amount of butterflies and activity.

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