Fritillaries flitter by - Keith Fowler

Wednesday 23rd July

I start with a question. What do you think I was trying to photograph?

Thanks to dustbin lorries, tractors and a rather tentative driver in a white car on roads where overtaking was unwise I arrived in the company of the Grate Stick Finder at the Wyre Forest a quarter of an hour late. Fortunately it was just in time to stop the others who were less tardy from beginning to panic about whether they had gone to the correct car park.

The car park was in Worcestershire so we quickly departed and made our way back to Shropshire. Unfortunately I mistook a bridge over a stream for the county boundary only to have to apologise to my colleagues when we crossed the next bridge which was the county boundary. Amazingly as we walked along the dirt track the Great Butterfly Catcher spotted a dark shieldbug nymph, this turned out to be a Bronze shieldbug.

We were heading for the meadow of the Worcestershire Wildlife Trust’s Knowles Coppice Reserve which happens to be in Shropshire. The weather was hot but the path to the meadow meandered alongside Dowles Brook in the shade of the trees at the edge of the wood making it very pleasant. We did stop periodically to examine the flora and fauna of the brook’s banks and were rewarded with a couple of Silver-washed fritillary, one of which the Great Whistler managed to net so we could all get a good look at it.

We found Cow-wheat but no Cow-wheat shieldbugs but I did find the rather curious Assassin bug Empicoris vagabundus which lurks on Enchanter’s nightshade.

We made it to the meadow just in time for lunch.

Refreshed we set about exploring the area.

We looked....

we peered....

 we celebrated successful nettings and pottings ...

and were rewarded with Essex skipper, Small skipper, White admiral, Small copper, a blue, many Silver-washed fritillaries, Gatekeepers, Meadow browns, Comma, Ringlets, Peacocks, Brown hawker, flies, bugs, moths and caterpillars. 

Yes, you did see Essex skipper in the list. Until recently this was not regarded as a Shropshire butterfly but several sightings, confirmed by the County Recorder, have established that it has arrived. And we are beginning to see it regularly, in some areas in greater profusion than Small skipper. We saw both today. The following photographs are not very good but do show the Essex skipper with black tips to the antennae and Small skipper with brown-orange tips. 

    Essex skipper

    Small skipper

The next stunning insect to cross our paths was an Alder moth larva
  

Now the answer to my question. It was a Speckled bush-cricket which I netted and potted in order to identify. Once released it was very reluctant to leave. It clambered over my fingers, clothes and cameras. As it was so “friendly” a couple of us took photographs. It allowed us to get very close but as soon as the extremely long antennae detected the lens it climbed onto the camera. This went on for several minutes causing great amusement. We returned it to a thistle where it continued to pose for more photographs.

Time was pressing so we made our way to the end of the meadow. On the way we came across this fly, Tachina fera, intent on feeding and not at all bothered by our presence.

We crossed the footbridge back into Worcestershire at Knowles Mill. Here we came across a couple of volunteers from the Worcestershire Wildlife Trust who were doing a bit of maintenance and tidying up around the mill. 

One of the volunteers very kindly gave us a guided tour of the Mill and answered our questions about its history and mechanism.

From the Mill we ascended the hill to the rather well maintained cycle which led back to the car park. 

We paused for a quick drink on a rather ornately carved bench then made our return to the cars helped along by frequent sightings of fritillaries and other butterflies.

Keith Fowler