A male Cirl Bunting perched in a bush and throwing his head back in full song. He has a black & yellow striped head and streaky brown body and wings.
Sunday's Cirl Bunting singing his little heart out.
Worn Large Tortoiseshell
Worn underwing of Large Tortoiseshell
Thrilled to find my first Large Tortoiseshell in the UK today (Somerset) @savebutterflies.bsky.social #SomersetButterflies #inverts
St Mawes Castle with its round tower and bastions overlooking the Carrick Roads.
St Just Church surrounded by palm trees.
The tidal estuary of the Percuil River fringed with woodland. The English Channel is visible through a gap in the hills beyond.
Caught the ferry across to St Mawes today for a wander around Roseland. Thrilled to see Cirl Bunting, along with my first Large White of the year.
Thanks Liam, that's useful to know.
A Red Admiral butterfly basking on the ground. Its wings are dark brown with a band of orange running across them and a cluster of white spots at the tip of each forewing.
A carpet of Bluebells growing under an avenue of trees in the gardens at Tregothnan.
The gothic mansion and formal lawns of Tregothnan with the deer park ha-ha in the foreground.
Four Red Admirals at Tregothnan this afternoon - the first I have seen this year. I wonder if there has been an arrival of migrants.
15 Pearl-bordered fritillaries this afternoon on the Cornwall coast path. Lovely to see them again. @savebutterflies.bsky.social @marcusrhodes.bsky.social @bc-cornwall.bsky.social
A Marsh Fritillary butterfly, brightly coloured with orange, cream and brown chequered wings, sits on a background of green plants
📢2 great jobs in #NatureRecovery at Butterfly Conservation, closing soon! Conservation Manager Wales, and Project Manager with PeacePlus Nature project in Northern Ireland. Challenging & exciting roles putting you at the heart of efforts to save butterflies & moths. butterfly-conservation.org/jobs 🦋
An Orange-tip butterfly chrysalis. It is a light brown in colour and shaped like a thorn, attached upright to the timber frame of the greenhouse by a silk girdle.
Two days before emergence, the chrysalis become "pharate" with the fully metamorphosed butterfly visible within. The body has turned black, and the white wings with their orange tips are clearly visible.
The empty chrysalis still attached to the timber frame of the greenhouse after the Orange-tip butterfly has emerged.
The newly-emerged, male Orange-tip butterfly resting on the timber frame of the greenhouse. Its wings are closed to reveal the mottled green and white underside of its hindwings.
This Orange-tip was laid as an egg on Mum's Brussel sprouts in May last year. He was rescued onto a potted Cuckooflower and pupated in the greenhouse. On Sunday, he finally emerged!
UKBMS results out today!
Results from fifty years of butterfly monitoring! The UKBMS data reveals declines in 33 species over the last 50 years.
Check out the full story below butterfly-conservation.org/news-and-blo...
And the full 2025 statistics can be found here: jncc.gov.uk/our-work/off...
Common cuckoo back on Bodmin moor yesterday. Always a treat to see them return and earlier than usual this year.
#birds #birding #birdphotography
A female Orange-tip with white wings tipped with black feeding from the pink flowers of Honesty at Bayfield.
A female Orange-tip perched on a Hazel leaf in my Mum's garden. The underside of its hindwings are mottled white and green.
A male Orange-tip basking on a rose leaf at Bayfield. The tip of each white forewing has an orange spot.
Orange-tip numbers continue to build (yay!) with my first females putting in an appearance today: one in Mum's garden this morning and several more at Bayfield this afternoon.
👏 Hurray the cycle is complete. Adult Clouded Yellow x3 on our Southbourne transect today. All stages monitored overwinter to demonstrate successful overwintering. Thanks to all who helped 👍 @dorsetbutterflies.bsky.social
A male Orange-tip butterfly perched on Bramble with mottled green and white under sides to its hind wings.
A male Orange-tip butterfly basking on the ground. The upper sides of its wings are white with a large orange spot on the tip of each forewing.
I met with my second Orange-tip of the year at Holkham today. He was much more co-operative with having his picture taken.
Fab!
It's such a great time of year!
The chrysalis of an Orange-tip butterfly shaped like a thorn and attached to the piece of timber.
We're still waiting on the Orange-tip in my Mum's greenhouse to emerge!
My first Holly Blue of the year flitting around the Holly hedge of a garden in Holt this afternoon. I'd like to imagine that it spent its time as a caterpillar feeding on the Ivy cladding the adjacent boundary.
Wonderful!
My first Orange-tip of the year at Kelling this afternoon (he wasn't stopping for photos).
The green flowers of Moschatel. Five flowers are arranged at right angles to each other (four around the side and one on top) at the tip of a single stem.
A pair of green "Townhall Clock" flowers of Moschatel.
The lobed leaves and green flower spikes of Moschatel carpeting the woodland floor.
I've walked this path around Kelling many times in spring, but this week is the first time I've noticed this huge patch of Moschatel. It certainly has a knack for hiding in plain sight! #WildflowerHour
A Small White butterfly basking on a Primrose flower.
A Small White butterfly basking on a Primrose flower. It has two black spots and a black tip to each white forewing.
...and a female Small White in Mum's garden.
A white butterfly with black veins and tips to the upper side of its wings, basking in the grass.
My first Green-veined White of the year in Bodham Wood, Norfolk, this afternoon.
A Marsh Fritillary butterfly roosting with closed wings on a grass stem. The underside of its wings are intricately chequered with orange and ochre.
Cornwall Butterfly Conservation have made the move to Bluesky!
We'll use this account to share Branch news, events, and conservation activities, and we would love to hear about your butterfly and moth sightings from across Cornwall.
Pearl-bordered fritillary caterpillars are coming along nicely in Devon. Spent the day at Haldon Forest, poking around pockets of violets along the broken edges of bracken litter @bcdevon.bsky.social @savebutterflies.bsky.social
A Speckled Wood butterfly perched on a blade of grass with its wings closed to revealing their mottled brown underside.
A Speckled Wood butterfly basking on a Nettle leaf with open wings that are brown with cream spots on their upperside.
Blackthorn blossom and a steep, wooded hillside (still with bare canopy) in the Cober Valley.
My first Speckled Woods and Swallow of the year on a wander around the hinterlands of Helston this afternoon.
Today is an exciting day: I have relaunched Inkcap!
New website, new branding, lots of in-depth reporting on nature in Britain coming your way.
Please share & help me get this thing off the ground.
www.inkcap.co.uk/inkcap-is-ba...
An Peacock butterfly with red wings and iridescent eyespots basking on the ground.
Feeling a little warmer out there today. Three Peacocks around Penryn Campus at lunchtime.
We’re missing a global indicator to track insects. By analyzing thousands of butterfly populations, we highlight both promising signals and key challenges—showing why these taxa are strong candidates for building a Global Index to support conservation. conbio.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/...
My first Small White of the year in Mum's North Norfolk garden this afternoon.
The sort of butterfly moment you dream of today - wandering around the office (Epping Forest) in the late afternoon sun when I flushed a lovely old Large Tortoiseshell from the sunny wall next to this old plum - just wonderful. Seems to be the second recent record from the forest #Butterflies