Wandering through a meadow!

Hey friends! How are ya? 

Did you know that the first Saturday in July is National Meadows day!? 

Me neither!!

When I discovered Meadows Day was a thing and that it was this weekend I changed my mind on what I wanted to post and feverishly spent some time typing and getting some photos together, only to realise how late it had gotten, so I decided to post it today instead.

Still, better late than never…

According to the dictionary a meadow is ‘a field with grass and often has wild flowers in it.’ I love visiting meadows, wandering through the long grass searching for butterflies, listening to the birds singing and hoping not to attract any ticks.

So I thought I’d share some meadow related snaps from some of my recent adventures!

Meadows have been part of the English landscape for over a thousand years. A meadow is traditionally an area of grassland which is left to grow long through the spring and summer months and then cut for hay and turned into animal feed for during the winter.

One of my favourite things to do when adventuring is to spend some time just sitting amongst the long grass, listening to the buzzing…if you look closely there is actually a bee on the Knapweed in the centre of the shot – I didn’t realise until I looked back at the days photos.

Continue reading “Wandering through a meadow!”

Silver Studded Blue {One frame}

Hello my friends! 

I did it I finally sat and typed something up for my blog for my self imposed Fri/Sat deadline!!

Recently I’ve been out on a few adventures and exploring nature filled places. I find being out in the wild to be so soothing and being outdoors comes with the added bonus of finding some new things to snap and share with you…

I recently spent a sunny day wandering around a wonderful little National trust place called Cubert Common, which is such a beautiful landscape to visit. I even met some new butterflies, specifically Silver-Studded blues! Including this one, isn’t he lovely?! 

Silver-Studded blue (Plebejus argus) is considered to be another of our butterflies that is becoming increasingly rare so it was awesome to see over twenty of them enjoying the sunshine! Literally I’ve taken so many photos of them!!

This small butterfly which has a wingspan of around 3cm is found mainly in heathland where they fly low over the heather – their main caterpillar food plant.

The males are a vibrant blue like this one, while the females are actually browning and nowhere near as showy, both sexes have distinct metallic spots on the lower underwing – these tiny markings are used to help distinguish them from the equally lovely Common Blue.

I cannot get over how pretty they are, they have such big eyes and cute stripy antennae.

I really hope you like this photo and that my nature filled posts spread a little bit of happiness in your direction.

As always thanks for reading and have a wonderful week!

Ps. If you want to see more of Cubert Common why not check out one of my previous posts about it HERE!

Raising a surprise Small Tortoiseshell

Hey friends! I’ve got a new Butterfly Tale for you this week!!

Again I missed my Friday/Saturday posting day, but hey it’s only Sunday!

I’ve had a chance to raise a new surprise butterfly, a surprise Small Tortoiseshell butterfly to be precise. A few weeks ago I was sitting quietly in the garden enjoying an afternoon in the sun when this little guy crawled up my arm.

Honestly I jumped out of my skin!

Funky looking ain’t he?

Anyway this fellow is a Small Tortoiseshell (Aglais urticae) and are a medium/large sized butterfly with a wing span of up to 5.5cm, and are one of our most top 5 butterflies who use the common ol’ nettle as its food plant.

Continue reading “Raising a surprise Small Tortoiseshell”

Exploring Penhale Dunes {Landscapes and butterflies}

Hello my Friends!

Guess what?! I did it again…I really need to learn that when scheduling posts I need to actually set them schedule not draft (rookie mistake!!).

This weeks post comes courtesy of all the lovely weather we’ve been having as I recently spent some time exploring Penhale Dunes.

It was beautiful.

Penhale dunes is an amazing set of really tall (90 metres in places) Atlantic facing sand dunes, the area is classed as a Site of Special Scientific Interest (SSSI) and a Special Area of Conservation (SAC) and spans a whopping 620 hectares.

Continue reading “Exploring Penhale Dunes {Landscapes and butterflies}”

Brimstone {One frame}

Hey friends! 

I’ve got a little one frame to share with you this week, over winter I’ve had a whole bunch of butterflies overwintering in my butterfly house (my fun and fancy shed!) which has been awesome, spookily they timed their wake up alarms to coincide with good weather and I’ve been able to release them all back into the big wide world post-hibernation (yay!!).

Including this little fella, he’s a male Brimstone butterfly who moved into my shed in December – I’ve literally no idea how he got in, but thats not the point…isn’t he pretty!

Brimstone (Gonepteryx rhamni) have angular wings so that when they sit amongst the foliage they resemble leaves and hide from predators.

Folklore suggests we may have actually got the word ‘butterfly’ from these guys as the males wings are fluorescent butter yellow!

While we get loads of Brimstone’s in the garden I’ve never had the chance to raise them, so finding one in my butterfly house was amazing. I like to think that bug-kind knows my shed is a safe space for them (although hopefully not too many spiders have moved in over winter!)

For next week I think I’m gonna try and create a needlework Brimstone.

As always thanks for reading and have a wonderful week!

Grayling {One frame}

Hey friends! 

A while back I got the chance to see a new butterfly and spent the best part of a day wandering around a place called Wheal Fortune – which is an old mining site and great hiking spot, with some awesome views! I even got to see a new type of butterfly!!

So the main focus of this One Frame is the elusive Grayling (Hipparchia semele) – it camouflages so unbelievably well with rocks and gravel that they almost disappear!

This little guy (or girl) was sunbathing in the gravel enjoying the last of the autumn sunshine, they always rest with their wings together and do this weird thing where they lean to whichever side will get more sun. Basically turning themselves into the Wally (or Waldo) of the butterfly world.

It was fascinating, I felt that if I blinked I’d lose it! I took about 50 photos of which about three actually included the fluttery fella!!

Sadly Graylings are listed in the UK as a priority species for conservation so it was awesome to not only see a few in the native habitat but snap an okay photo as well.

I really hope you like this nature filled post and that it spreads a little bit of happiness. Do you have a favourite bug? They are magical creatures and I love watching them. 

Ps. If you wanna see the landscape of Wheal Fortune I posted a One Frame HERE!

Raising a Comma Butterfly

Hey friends! 

This week I’ve got a bonus butterfly tale for you, I’m really very excited about this one!!

Over the last couple of months I’ve been raising a grand total of 61 Red Admiral butterflies and during that time I’ve dug up many, many nettle plants for them to eat. When they start to pupate I like to add a fresh plant or two so that when they emerge there is a nice, new host plant for them to (hopefully) lay more eggs on.

At one point I had 6 Red ads pupating in a house of their own and after a few days I noticed the nettle I had prepared for them was being eaten, well, it turned out to have an occupant! One lone Comma caterpillar was quite happily eating its way through my new nettle.

Comma (Polygonia c-album) is another of our native butterflies, its one of the quirkiest looking ones we have here. They have scalloped wing edges which with the dark markings on the undersides of its wings camouflage it to resemble a dead leaf! 

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Raising Red Admiral Butterflies

Hey friends! I’ve got a new Butterfly tale to share with you, as over the last couple of months I’ve been raising a troupe of super friendly common garden butterflies.

Red Admirals (Vanessa atalanta) are a quick flying regular migrant to these shores and beginning each Spring flocks of Red ads travel northwards from North Africa and mainland Europe. The females that arrive here lay their eggs on common ol’ stinging nettle and from July onwards we have these lovelies to look at…although they overwinter here as well, and I saw them in the area from as early as February.

I love these butterflies they are so pretty and always happy to pose for photos if I’m quiet enough. This year I was lucky enough to find a few little batches of eggs on some of the purpose grown nettles in the garden and I fostered just a small amount of them (literally just a single leaf) and moved them into my butterfly house. Before digging them up a fresh nettle to live on.

Which is a bit weird when I think about it now.

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Fleeting thought #6 {hand stitching & reflections}

Welcome back to another edition of my ramblings…how ya doing?! My intention really was to post this last week but I had Covid and I (not to sound dramatic) thought I was dying, literally I couldn’t get out of bed. Crazy really I managed not to catch Covid during the actual pandemic and then catch it randomly from a lady at church.

I thought I’d share a new Fleeting thought with you this week. A little different to normal this one is more of an insight into my love of embroidery.

If you’ve been following my blog for a while then you might have seen one or two of my embroidered butterfly posts. A lot of people ask me about my butterfly pins as I wear them (normally in my hair) and are often quite shocked when I tell them they are made by hand.

It kinda pushed me to the question. 

Why do I embroider things in my spare time?

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Raising Peacock Butterflies

Hey friends! I’ve been a day behind all week and woke up convinced today was Friday only to discover that not only is it Saturday but also August 3rd (when did that happen!!)

So today I’m (belatedly) posting my first Butterfly tale of 2024!

As over the last couple of months I’ve been raising a little group of one of the prettiest common garden butterflies we get in the UK.

Peacock (Aglais io) are a beautiful red butterfly with giant eye spots (apparently these confuse predators) that seems to be around at all times of the year and is one of our bigger butterflies. The females lay their eggs on common ol’ stinging nettle in May and we have these lovelies to look at about two months later. Something I find amazing is that the females will lay all of their eggs at once which can be up to 500 eggs!!

Continue reading “Raising Peacock Butterflies”