Orange tip

An orange tip butterfly has settled for the evening and night on an inflorescence of a tussock sedge at Leighton Moss. The mottled green underside to the underwings identifies this as an orange tip. The upper wings are tucked under, but the tips are just projecting, and there is a trace of orange showing from the upperside to say that this is a male. One can't help but wonder how this survived the deluge yesterday.

This proved an easier subject than the swifts that were scything through the air above the reedbeds. All I managed was to nearly blind myself as I tried to follow one when it flew across the sun.

I also managed to miss seeing both Brokenbanjo and the osprey he was watching from the Public Hide that had caught a very large fish. I shall be looking out for that blip later this evening. The bird was flying north away from Leighton Moss, and it has got us wondering where it might have been heading. Across the Kent to Foulshaw, or somewhere else? And was it carrying the fish back to a nest?

New birds for the year: yesterday house martin, today reed warbler.