High Brown Fritillaries, mating. Aish Tor, Dartmoor, Devon. DSC_6338.jpg
First time I have seen, or photographed one of these, UKs most threatened butterfly. The male is on the left.
I decided to take a drive down to south Devon to camp for several nights, with the specific intention of spending a day on Aish Tor to see HBFs. So I spent 8 hours on Sunday on Aish Tor. It was exceedingly hard work, once I got up onto the hillside, having parked in my ignorance of the location, at Newbridge car park down on the River Dart; it was sultry and very hot and the butterflies had twin turbo boost full on: they simply never seemed to stop moving. Added to that, there were ticks everywhere in the sea of metre high bracken that covered the hillside, so long sleeves and trousers tucked into socks was de rigeur and made it even less comfortable!
Having spent much of the the morning, tagging along with a lady who had been before and seemed to know the best location, I branched off alone to search higher up the slopes where fritillaries seemed more frequent. It was 3 hours altogether before I had one settled on bramble flower in a less than ideal location, low down in a corner of a small area cleared of bracken. In mid afternoon another one showed up to investigate dog poo on the path where I was resting. Not long after that I had another male nectaring on bramble, but it was tight to photograph in a narrow path trodden through the bracken. Late in the afternoon I was shown these two mating specimens by a couple I spoke to, which probably saved the day!
Thank you for your faves and comments.
High Brown Fritillaries, mating. Aish Tor, Dartmoor, Devon. DSC_6338.jpg
First time I have seen, or photographed one of these, UKs most threatened butterfly. The male is on the left.
I decided to take a drive down to south Devon to camp for several nights, with the specific intention of spending a day on Aish Tor to see HBFs. So I spent 8 hours on Sunday on Aish Tor. It was exceedingly hard work, once I got up onto the hillside, having parked in my ignorance of the location, at Newbridge car park down on the River Dart; it was sultry and very hot and the butterflies had twin turbo boost full on: they simply never seemed to stop moving. Added to that, there were ticks everywhere in the sea of metre high bracken that covered the hillside, so long sleeves and trousers tucked into socks was de rigeur and made it even less comfortable!
Having spent much of the the morning, tagging along with a lady who had been before and seemed to know the best location, I branched off alone to search higher up the slopes where fritillaries seemed more frequent. It was 3 hours altogether before I had one settled on bramble flower in a less than ideal location, low down in a corner of a small area cleared of bracken. In mid afternoon another one showed up to investigate dog poo on the path where I was resting. Not long after that I had another male nectaring on bramble, but it was tight to photograph in a narrow path trodden through the bracken. Late in the afternoon I was shown these two mating specimens by a couple I spoke to, which probably saved the day!
Thank you for your faves and comments.