Small Skipper

Pete and Chris went off to Kent again, looking for evidence of Duke of Burgundy buterflies, while I made a start on a survey of part of Castor and Ailsworth parishes, an interesting project which will attempt to examine the relationship between areas of wildlife interest and landscape history. 

Much of the area is in intensive arable cultivation, but has one of the densest populations of skylarks that I've ever come across, as well as very good numbers of yellowhammers and linnets, both declining farmland species. Among the intensive arable I found pockets of diversity: bridleways with Meadow Scabious, Lady's Bedstraw and Knapweed; a fallow corner being colonised by limestone grassland flowers such as Marjoram, which in turn had attracted many butterflies including this Small Skipper; a population of the rather uncommon Corn Parsley on the edge of an arable field and a roadside verge rich with Fairy Flax, Common Thyme and Pyramidal Orchids.