Camouflaged Clouded Yellow

It's been a productive sort of day, with various admin tasks completed, a morning trip into Peterborough and an afternoon spent surveying a few more ponds at Orton Pit. 

While we were walking to our survey area (right at the far end of this very large nature reserve), Alex spotted this Clouded Yellow butterfly, flitting among the grasses. It stopped and rested several times on the brambles, and was remarkably well camouflaged while at rest, the burgundy and gold tones of its closed wings being remarkably similar to the bramble leaves, which are attaining their autumn hues. Normally they're rather too flighty to get a good image, but the temperature was fairly low, which meant this individual wasn't as active as normal.

The Clouded Yellow is one of the truly migratory European butterflies and a regular visitor to Britain and Ireland. Although some of these golden-yellow butterflies are seen every year, the species is famous for occasional mass immigrations and subsequent breeding, which are fondly and long remembered as ''Clouded Yellow Years''. I've only seen a few this year, but they do like Orton Pit as it has abundant narrow-leaved bird's-foot-trefoil, which is one of the larval food plants.

I'm feeling pretty tired this evening, so I guess it'll be an early night as Chris and I are heading down to Surrey tomorrow to do some more aquatic plant surveys. It'll be a long, long day...