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More Butterflies (including another Big Butterfly Count) and Moths

We spent Saturday at NT Wicken Fen in Cambridgeshire. It was a very hot day and we hoped that we might see good numbers of odonata and lepidoptera.

We decided to do a second Big Butterfly Count - this time along the Butterfly Walk. We saw other butterflies, too, such as the Small Tortoiseshell and the Peacock, but the ones in the list above were the ones we were able to count during the allocated time.

I mentioned in my previous post that there are two day-flying moths that can be counted alongside butterflies for the purpose of this particular survey, namely the Silver Y (a migratory species) and the Six-spot Burnet. I have seen both these species this year (the Silver Y sighting was a first for me), but not during a count.

The Silver Y in the photos below was at NT Dunwich Heath, nectaring on bell heather.

You can make out the tail of the letter 'y' on the left forewing

Frontal view




So then we come to the Six-spot Burnet.

The photo below (my apologies for the lack of focus: I blame the breeze which caused the grass to sway!) was taken at Minsmere ...


... where we also saw the adult moths taking to the air on their maiden voyages ...


There is another day-flying (but also night-flying) moth that we sometimes see here in Suffolk, the Cinnabar moth. Its caterpillars stand out against the grass and can often be seen on Ragwort. Here is a photo:


And here is the adult moth in a picture I took at Snape Maltings in early June ...


cropped close-up


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