The Lost Valley Of The Bugs

Ketch ing up from my week's summer hollyday, we have a tale:


In which your hero, despairing of BC ever fixing the security on their website, decides to go off and find his own Heath Fritillaries and in a strange break with all expectations, though after trials, travails, and lots of mud, sweat and deers..... actually does!

::Faints::

Prove it? Right;

Heath Fritillary!

Yeah, total spoiler. No apologies. :)

And yes, the world was indeed turned upside down.

They were bashful with their underwings

"Camo is for wimps!"

The weather had been naughty for some time after the earlier hot spell, I had - you may recall - despaired of seeing those early frits for yet another year. Then it relented, and a sudden warming seemed likely to bring fresh flutterbies out. Sunshine and the odd cloud [of even shower] seemed a good mix to get them visible but not too frisky, too.

So, off I toddled to pastures far, and I hunted low and lower. I found pretty scenery and a quite a few butterflies of not the right sort;

Meadow Brown

Small Heath

Green Hairstreak

Eventually, being hot, damp - it really rained quite well when it felt like it - and very bothered, I for the sake of proper practice checked the one last bit I hadn't stomped, despite it not seeming very likely and not having even found the frickin' foodplant. Not one. [They're all over the East fringe of t' Moor, for example]

But.

Ohh, what's this?

The teeniest Common Cow-wheat

Hiding in vegetated scree.
This is a very under-reported plant, as while the big ones are realllly obvious, growing in great patches and getting knee-high, there are a surprising amount of tiny ones, all over the shop.

Getting back to the day in question..

Grasshopper

Lacewing

Scores of these. Title up there not just about butterflies!

But there was this hidden valley in a hidden valley, steep, hard and not at all friendly, but never mind that;

Not quite a disused railway line

Speedwell sp.?

This looks quite like Poisonpie,

but it's on heath and I reckon it's

The Deceiver!

Also I had a surprise - very much so on all sides - encounter with Red Deer. These were the first I've seen in a long while - I think we're in multiple years here - and while 'only' six, they were at point blank range; about 10m!!! The terrain and wind direction responsible, of course, as neither party were aware until said distance, when a lot of shock was shared around. Alas as they were so close I had no chance of getting my camera out, switched on, aimed and focused before they vanished, but I had some lovely views of them bouncing through bracken [and finding it much easier than I was..]


Being in the mood to celebrate, post-Heath I relocated somewhere with some breeze, and scaled a hill I've not before;

Dunkery Beacon

View from far better than view of, though the weather interceded a bit [sideways rain up there!]

Can you see it?

Looking up the Bristol Channel, beyond Flatholme [with lighthouse on south side], hidden through rain but shining white in something like sunshine, it's the Severn Bridge [number two]. Just a wee way off.
It was clear through bins!

Ahem.


Yeah, so, I've now seen every spp. of butterfly that occurs in Devon - and most of the accidentals - but not all IN Devon, and a lot not yet on photo. Yes, this is a personal mission. Yes, some are going to be nigh impossible [I'm not going after the vagrants, but the residents - ie. breeders and regular immigrants - I am] without being naughty. And I haven't been. I've not so much as climbed over a gate - or indeed walked through an open gate [I closed it] - so until a certain organisation fixes their web security it pretty much will be impossible. But you never know.


And I'm not giving up.


Despite how hard some of the 'possible's are.


Hey, it passes the time 'til the next storm. :D



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