different backgrounds

...as we enter the last four days of the Big Butterfly Count, I am beginning to wonder where I will find four more species of butterfly that I have not yet blipped in the series! I continue to hold back on the Large Skipper or Meadow Brown, as I see plenty of these every day, but I suspect they will both feature by close of play on Sunday.

We were busy this morning and then proceeded to squander the best weather of the day because we were glued to the TV watching Tim Baillie &Etienne Stott, David Florence & Richard Hounslow, and Peter Wilson win their respective Gold, Silver and Gold medals in Canoe Slalom, Canoe Slalom, and Double Trap Shooting events. Well done them!

The clouds were starting to pile up so we hot footed it to our local Dorset WT reserve at Townsend Quarry, which is just around the corner. So far this summer, it has been almost bereft of butterflies so we were delighted to see numbers starting to pick up. The usual two already mentioned and the Marbled Whites have been augmented by Red Admirals, Speckled Woods, Common Blues and, these lovely Green-veined Whites Pieris napi. I have blipped two different males to show how much the ground colour can vary between individuals. Very yellow ones, such as the top one, are normally more associated with northern colonies.

Tomorrow, we hope to travel to North Dorset where there are several species that are not present down here on the coast...