6th August 2016 Shipton Bellinger, a village on the southeastern corner of Salisbury Plain is a well known site to see brown hairstreaks Thecla betulae. This is an August flying species that is always local and confined to discrete areas of southern England and south Wales. Ancient byways to the west of the village rise through fields of abandoned…
Tag: butterflies
Bernwood Forest
19th July, 2016 Bernwood Forest is one of the great butterfly woodlands of England. The forest today is much altered; a great dark window in the heart of Oxfordshire with irregular panes of dull softwood supported by thin hardwood frames. Early morning on the hottest day of the year is quiet and cool. Purple spikes of betony Stachys officinalis line…
Dene Park’s Admirals and Emperors
The car park on the edge of the woodland is full mainly with dog walkers but also butterfly watchers. The two groups have an interesting relationship; the latter are highly dependent on the irresponsibility of the former but, of course, not vice versa… The purple emperor Apatura iris male is not often drawn from the high oaks where it takes…
Lullingstone Park
The long walk up from the old, red brick manor house at Lullingstone, now promoted to a castle, leads to neatly mown paths through chalk grasslands that cushion wide fairways and greens. The meadows are rich in yellow and white flowers: bedstraws, trefoils, fading oxeye daisies Leucanthemum vulgare, patches of yellow rattle Rhinanthus minor and spikes of agrimony Agrimonia sp amongst…
Downland Impressions
The long view of the downs is sharp greens and cobalt blues. Cold details are picked out by the evening sun across the sloping panorama. The short view is warm, out of focus and welcoming. The orchids, buttercups and trefoils beneath a shower of quaking grass create an impressionist watercolour. The downs are an art gallery…
Boisjarzeau Encore
The land of the south Charente is a changing; old fashioned, low intensive mixed farming is on the wane and new intensive agriculture is spreading. The old is untidy and intricate, fascinating but inefficient; and the new, uniform and sharp-lined, mundane but productive and profitable. Young Limousine bull in an ancient pasture land; herds of these fine…
South Charente and North Dordogne Fritillaries
Everywhere in the quiet borderland of the rivers Dronne and Lizonne/Nizonne there are fritillary butterflies, captivating in their intricate brown, orange and gold filigree patterns; all confusingly similar but subtly different. This then is a brief and provisional aide memoire on the six (or seven) common species which occur and thus a basis to compare and…
Le Plateau d’Argentine
The small village of Argentine, so small it is now linked with nearby Rochebeaucourt as La Rochebeaucourt-et-Argentine, sits peacefully at one end of a long limestone plateau above the river Nizonne looking over the rolling hills of the Charente to the west. The plateau is a great grey whaleback with ancient, wooded Argentine at its head, an open…
La Forêt de la Double
Looking to the south of Saint-Aulaye beyond the River Dronne, the land is endless lines of long, forested ridges where hen harrier, honey buzzard and hobby are all found within the planted pines and clearfells. In late August, the Double Forest is quiet and no raptors are in the sky to help give their nest…
Les Tourbières de Vendoire
There is little to suggest that the habitats around the winding, river Lizonne near Vendoire on the borders of the Charente and Dordogne are in any way special. There is the occasional, brown-watered pond and impenetrable grassland amongst the ever present lines of willow and poplar. However, the alkaline fens of Les Tourbières de Vendoire form a thin seam of ecological…
Boisjarzeau’s Little Emperors and Admirals
At the end of May, Freyer’s purple emperor (Apatura metis) or FPE was abundant around Lake Skadar in Montenegro as described here and then here. Close to the slow winding rivers and streams of the southern Charente, the lesser purple emperor (Apatura ilia) or LPE is king. These are the subspecies A. i. clytie, which is a…
Boisjarzeau
The small, stone quiet village of Bellon sits on one of the endless rolling hills of the south Charente surrounded by large fields of maize and sunflower. The village is like a thousand others that pepper the landscape and together act like myriad anchors across the soft, green ocean that is rural France. The small village of Bellon. Bois…