The Beauty of the Small Copper

In the past couple of weeks, I have seen several Small Copper butterflies. They are deceptively small butterflies that are in the middle of their second flight period of the year. Whilst, not a rare species nationally I rarely see many each year and each sighting is a treat if you can wait long enough for one to land.

Like many British butterflies, their predominant colour is orange. They have striking speckled patterns on the fore wings and a beautiful band of orange on the edge of the aft wing.

This individual was probably newly emerged as its colours were still vibrant and the wings were perfect with no scale loss. Eggs are laid on dock plants and it is on this abundant plant that the caterpillars feed.

The beauty of the species can only be seen when settled.

Only then is it possible to see the gently striped black and white antennae ending in a black top dipped in yellow/orange.   Close up you can see that the majority of the butterfly is chocolate brown punctuated, like the orange, by black spots. A frill of fine silvery hairs edge both sets of wings.

Commas everywhere

Today out on my patch the Comma butterflies were out in force. I recorded over 10 feeding on the extensive bramble flowers. All were vibrant orange, still glistening in their newly emerged form.

Comma -  Polygonia c-album

Bivoltine - March to End of April, July to Early October

First Sighting date in the Patch.

2003 -                                  13th July
2004 -                                    4th July
2005 -                  26th June
2006 -                                    2nd July
2007 -                                     8th July
2008 -                                     7th July
2009 - 10th May
2010 -                                    4th July
2011 -                                   2nd July
2012 -                                   8th July
2013 -                                 14th July
2014 -                29th June
2015 -                  7th June
2016 - 8th May
2017 -                                 10th July

Alongside the Comma's there were several Ringlets, a Meadow Brown and several Large Skippers.So far this season had been poor for butterflies but now seemed to be picking up.

The first of the Brown Hawker Dragonflies were on the wing and unusually I heard the first grasshopper -  Field Grasshopper whose orangy red abdomen caused me some confusion for some time.