This fine spring weather is bringing out a few of the spring butterflies and with an afternoon of sunshine forecast I decided to make the most of it and visit Lower Moor Farm in the Cotswold Water Park to see what I could find.
Lower Moor Farm is owned by the Wiltshire Wildlife trust and has a lovely little cafe called the Dragonfly Cafe which overlooks one of the lakes, and from which sometimes you can see otters.
There are three hides but they were very quiet today and I turned my attention to butterfly spotting.
I saw a Brimstone flying along one of the lakeside paths which is bordered with a thick hedge. At the same time I became aware of a smaller white butterfly but which one was it?
After flying up and down for a while it then halted and settled on a bramble stem from where I could see it was a green veined white, its greyish-green veins very obvious in the sunlight.
I continued my walk and saw an orange tip flying past at speed, that was two species new for the season now. I stopped off at the cafe for a cup of tea, and a chat with the Wildlife Trust representative who had a stall adjacent to it. Rather than return to my car I decided I would re trace my steps, and perhaps find a few more butterfly species. However, I didn't see anything apart from a flyby peacock. until I reached the entrance to children's education wildlife area which has a pond and a couple of huts some grassy paths.
I met someone coming out who told me they had seen various butterflies including an orange tip so decided I would linger in the area. I soon saw a couple of peacock butterflies which obligingly perched on some blackthorn flowers. Then a small white butterfly again, another green veined white? But a closer look revealed it was a female orange tip, which lack the orange tips to its wings, but has black tips instead. I didn't get a glimpse of the underside which is a sort of mottled green and white colour.
An old notice board had something on it, which turned out to be a butterfly with wings closed, but its small white 'comma' gave its identification away. A Comma. After a while it opened and shut its wings a few times before flying off on to some dried grasses and turning to face its wings to the sun. .
It was a nice afternoon to be out in the sunshine and always satisfying to see my first of any butterlfly species for the year.
green veined white
green veined white
peacock
female orange tip
comma
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