Common blue butterfly on Minchinhampton Common

I dropped Helena in town this morning as she was running a stall again, but instead of going home I went to buy some two-stroke additive. I have some major strimming ahead of me. I drove along the Nailsworth valley as far as Woodchester where there was a specialist Stihl agent, bought the strange looking fluid and then headed on to a quick shop in Nailsworth. 

I took the scenic route home which entailed driving up the steep zig-zag slope called 'the W' up onto Michinhampton Common. The sun was trying to break through the cloud cover and the landscape looked beautiful. I noticed how long the grass had grown on the common, which seems unusual and I wondered why this was the case. The long late spring and wet weather? The delay on the cows returning to graze the 'common land'? Fewer cows and no horses roaming the wide open commons?  Any or all of these might contribute to the growth of the wild and natural limestone grassland which is encouraged by the owners, the National Trust.

I decided to stop and parked on the top of the common near to Tom Long's Post. A number of cows were there and I thought their long horns peaking above the grass as they sat down to chew the cud might provide some blip material. I wandered around and watched the cows, the cars that had to stop for any animals crossing the roads (they have absolute right of way there), and a man flying his near silent model airplane. 

Swallows and swifts flew intermittently overhead, golfers swung clubs somewhat aimlessly on the golf course sections and runners, bicyclists and walkers criss-crossed the common around me.

But my heart was with the skylarks which sang nearly constantly above and about me. I watched them rise, hover and then fall back to the long grass. I followed some of them, photographed a few and delighted in the luck we have to live with them there all year round filling the air with joyful sound.

I might have blipped any of these things, and even an idiot younger man in his expensive  and silly small sports car, who was the only person out of hundreds of drivers who actually honked his horn to try and make the cows move out of his way. What a ******!

On the way back to the car as I followed some skylarks who had just landed ahead of me, I saw a common blue butterfly. I didn't try to follow it, it just stopped in front of me. I couldn't resist grabbing a distant snap, although the wild orchid close by nearly got my attention as well. But the butterfly was even more beautiful today and I wish I could  also have shown you the brilliant blue upper sides of its wings.