Fleeing Adder
I love early May when everything is coming into growth and there is so much hope that this year’s weather will be better than last year's. Today’s day out was full of many highlights the first one stopping at Park Gate Down, my favourite orchid meadow, to have a quick look around and see if the first of the Monkey Orchids
(Orchis simia) were in flower. I know of a very sheltered area where they always seem to flower earlier and sure enough the first ones were just showing. Monkey Orchids are unusual in that the flowers open from the top and they really do look like monkeys complete with their tails and smiling faces. Monkey Orchids only grow on a handful of sites in this country and it’s always a special moment when you see them growing and flowering again on this site.
We had a walk around the meadows enjoying the Early Purple Orchids
(Orchis mascula) and Cowslips
(Primula veris) too when there on one of the paths was an Adder
(Vipera berus) who had flattened themselves out to catch more of the sun's warming rays. Sadly it moved off as soon as it was aware we were there. I wonder if it would have gone back if we had quietly waited. We had already had quite an interesting morning but we were really on our way to Denge Wood especially Bonsai Bank for a walk there. At this time of year there is a very small colony of Duke of Burgundy butterflies
(Hamearis lucina) and it was these we were looking for. We weren’t disappointed either as sure enough we found some on the wing very soon but you have to know exactly the right place to go look for them.
Duke of Burgundy on a Lady Orchid
Bonsai Bank is an unusual place as it’s an area where conifers were planted about 40 years ago. In time all the conifers grew around them but on this bank where obviously the conditions weren't ideal for growth the conifers remained stunted. This area is amazing though as hundreds of Lady Orchids
(Orchid purpurea), another very rare orchid, grow there. This year was a very good year indeed for them too: it was no exaggeration to say there were hundreds growing in big groups. I happened to say just off the top of my head as we were sitting eating our lunch wouldn’t it be good if one of the rarest (Duke of Burgundy) butterflies was to sit on one of one of the rarest (Lady) orchids! I think one butterfly must have been listening too as that’s just what he did. It didn’t stay long enough for me to get a good picture just one of those "for the record" shots but it was funny and maybe I should talk to the butterflies more often.
Woodland ride
The Duke of Burgundy is a delightful butterfly, but it is also tiny, with a wingspan of just 3cm. They tend to live in very small colonies and their larval food plants are Primrose
(Primula vulgaris) and Cowslip, of which there are plenty in their favoured area. We met up with some people there too who were from the Butterfly Conservation Trust who were looking for the butterflies as well and especially for evidence of some eggs being laid. I asked a few questions too and discovered that the sexes are very similar to look at but the male only has 4 true legs.
It really had been a delightful day, the kind of spring day that is so good to get out for a walk and we saw many more butterflies that are common early in the year too including a lovely and obliging Holly Blue
(Celastrina argiolus) and a newly emerged Orange Tip
(Anthocharis cardamines). We also saw several Dingy Skippers
(Erynnis tages) which are really very nondescript butterflies that could be mistaken for a moth with their drab colours. At 2.5cm they are even smaller than the Duke of Burgundy. Get the pictures on a computer screen though and they are beautiful with plenty of hairy detail in their wings - they are not drab at all.
Recommended Reading If you are interesting in finding out more about Britain's butterflies, these books are very handy to have. You can buy them directly through Amazon.co.uk from this site.   
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This was one of the first times I’d used my macro lens for taking Butterfly and Orchid pictures too and I really like the results so far but it still needed some trial and error working out which aperture setting worked best. There is such a limited depth of field when working close up, and this means sometimes not all you expect to be in focus is, and the effect you are after doesn’t quite work out.
A walk back along the wide open ride that is being carefully looked after and managed to encourage wildlife was delightful and I was keen to return very soon to see what else I might find.
