Wall

I've been neglecting the informal meadows next to Bradford Beck in Shipley this year. On the north side development has taken hold and it's been a bit depressing to see such a great wild space torn up, although I understand the pressures for new housing, and to most this is brown field not green field. The bit between the Beck and the railway station is still relatively untouched, although with one of the main access points cut off it is less used and even more overgrown and difficult to get into.

Today I was across the road in the dentist, and the sun was shining, so I thought I'd have a quick walk through to see what was there. The patch by Carnegie Drive had been part scoured by bulldozers during the winter, but even those bare patches are being reclaimed by thistles and pioneer species and it was there that I found this Wall (main image), the first I've seen at this spot. An Orange-tip and a few Large Skipper also showed themselves.

Moving to the other side of the Beck and beneath the railway lines it seemed quiet but I eventually found a couple more Large Skippers and  a Common Blue at the far end. Then someone else came along who was also displaying all the signs of looking for butterflies and I found myself in the company of one of the local experts who I'd not met before and who surprised me by saying there had been Dingy Skippers on site for the past few years and who gave me directions to Purple Hairstreaks up on Shipley Glen for later in the summer.  Leaving the site there was time for a Green-veined White and finally, in the middle of the path, a gift in the shape of my first Red Admiral of the year, which takes me to twenty species on the annual list. 

I'll come down again in a few weeks when the Marbled Whites should be yet, although for once I don't need any follow-up dental treatment, so I'll have to find some other excuse.

Butterfly Journal 2018

20 11/06/18: Red Admiral, "Big Field", Shipley.