Small Heath

Small Heath Coenonympha pamphilus, Pitstone, Buckinghamshire (27/05/2012)

Small Heath Coenonympha pamphilus, Pitstone, Buckinghamshire (27/05/2012)

Small Blue

Several days of hot weather have brought Small Blues Cupido minimus out in amazing munbers. I spent a couple of hours today, photographing these tiny, active butterflies at Pitstone and simply lost count of how many I saw, but there must have been hundreds. Dingy and Grizzled Skippers along with good numbers of Small Heaths and Common Blues make for a great mornings Butterflying.

Small Blue  Cupido minimus, Pitstone, Buckinghamshire, (27/05/2012)

 Small Blue  Cupido minimus, Pitstone, Buckinghamshire, (27/05/2012)

Small Blue  Cupido minimus, Pitstone, Buckinghamshire, (27/05/2012)

Few-flowered Garlic

Few-flowered Garlic Allium paradoxum

A mass of Few-flowered Garlic Allium paradoxum carpets the shadier, dryer parts of Drayton Beauchamp Churchyard and the adjacent canal bank. Identifying the plant was not a problem as the colony at Drayton Beauchamp is actually mentioned in Fitter and Fitter's Wild Flowers of Great Britain and Ireland.
Native to the Caucasus and Iran, Few-flowered Garlic was first recorded in Edinburgh in 1863 and is now naturalised and abundant in Southern Scotland and the East of England. Flowering from April to June, it is a highly invasive plant that spreads rapidly by means of bulbils which are small bulbs produced at the top of the stem.
I picked a few leaves to try out in a salad and they were delicious, although I found out later that they are slightly poisonous, especially to dogs. I didn't notice any ill effects though! 

Few-flowered Garlic Allium paradoxum, Drayton Beauchamp. (22/04/2012)

Few-flowered Garlic Allium paradoxum, Drayton Beauchamp. (22/04/2012)

Few-flowered Garlic Allium paradoxum, Drayton Beauchamp. (22/04/2012)

Butterflies At Last

After weeks of relentlessly grim weather Saturday dawned bright and sunny, and I decided that it would be a good day to look for butterflies. I started out at College Lake but a cold breeze was whipping across the lake and there was not a butterfly to be seen. My initial excitement started to wane, but a couple of Cuckoos calling in the distance and a hunting Hobby cheered me up, so I headed for Pitstone, where a little cutting at the base of a sunny chalk bank, once part of a quarry, always proves good for butterflies in Spring. The site was warm and sheltered and as I had hoped, full of activity. Dingy Skippers were all over the place, chasing each other over the short grass, and with a little searching I found a beautiful pristine Grizzly Skipper nectaring on a Buttercup. I stumbled across a Green Hairstreak, quietly resting on a leaf and watched fascinated as a small but ambitious spider lassoed one of its legs with silk and made a hopeless attempt to drag it away. This little scene kept me amused for a while until the Hairstreak grew weary of being pestered and flew away.

Green Hairstreak Callophrys rubi, being lassoed by a spider, Pitstone (12/05/12)

I was leaving I bumped into some friends and decided to spend some time at Pitstone Fen, helping them with a butterfly survey. Wandering slowly round the fen we found a Small Blue, more Dingy Skippers and a few Green Hairstreaks. After this pleasant little interlude I headed to Ivinghoe Beacon to hunt for Duke of Burgundies and soon found a few of these beautiful little jewels in their usual sheltered gully. After so many days of terrible weather it was really heartening to feel the heat of the sun on the back of my neck and be surrounded by butterflies again.

Duke of Burgundy Hamearis lucina, Ivinghoe Beacon (13/05/12)

Female Orange-tip Anthocharis cardamines, Ivinghoe Beacon (12/05/12)

Green Hairstreak Callophrys rubi, Pitstone (12/05/12)

Dingy Skipper Erynnis tages, Pitstone (12/05/12)

Grizzled Skipper Pyrgus malvae, Pitstone (12/05/12)