I have been up to the old coal waste heaps again, and it is magic! Such a mosaic of habitats, and hot - like an oven. Standing on the very top a rich grassland shot through with yellow of birdsfoot triefoil and hawkweed rolls away from you. The paths are black with coal waste and shimmer with heat haze, it smells sweet. The only sounds the skylarks and enough grasshoppers to form an orchestra every square meter. In amongst all this are our sun worshipping butterflies.
Our first character is the Small Heath, which is indeed small, it has a 4cm wingspan. It is an easy one to spot in flight. It looks like a little tan orange fleck throwing itself over the grass tussocks. It never seems to make a lot of height and lands every meter or so. On landing it lines itself up side on to the sun, it tilts its wings like a solar panel to get optimum heat gain, then it is off again tumbling over the meadow. The Small Heath is having mixed fortunes at the moment as it losing habitat due to "improvement" of old meadows. This particular South Wales colony is doing fine, several hundred I'd estimate.
Next up is an interesting and much larger butterfly, the Grayling. Interesting because in the UK it has a coastal distribution, this colony is at least 30 miles inland. The colony is not large and seems to be collected around a small patch at one end of the site. Plenty of suitable habitat around suggesting it is a fairly new colony. This butterfly is a strong flyer and another ground rester. When it lands, like the Small Heath, it sits side on to the sun. Does not bother with the wing tilting however. On landing the tan eye spot on the bottom of the front wings is clearly visible, this is displayed for a second or two, and then folded behind the rear wings. At this point it vanishes, if you look away and then look back it can take several seconds to relocate it. The reason for this is the stunningly cryptic markings on the underside of the rear wings. I noticed that they also liked the fence posts so I staked one out and within short order had some photographs. They are easy to approach once landed as their camouflage will only work if they stay very still. If you do push your luck, you get a warning, the eye spot reappears. It may not be the most colourful of butterflies but it must have the best textured pattern.
Last but least only by size is the Small Skipper. This little character is always a delight. It flies with the most rapid wing beat of any British butterfly and is always busy - it loves Birdsfoot triefoil. When it does rest you can see its odd almost biplane approach to wings that gives it a distinctive look and unique flight. Large numbers of these were shooting around at high speed, nothing wrong with their numbers!
I also saw a lot of Meadow Browns but completely failed to get photographs. Meadow Browns can fly in much cooler conditions than most butterflies. They seemed to be using the heat as an excuse to never stop. A couple of Small Tortoiseshells were also seen, but have spoken about these in a previous entry. Next time we will look at dragonflies, yes I have ended my dragonfly drought!
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