Tag: nature blog

Embroidered Butterfly #14 {Dingy Skipper}

On By ArtyMissKIn Art, Needlework Bugs7 Comments

Greetings friends! 

Once again I missed my Friday/Saturday posting day, and have landed on a Sunday (again!) so I think I should just change my posting day to sometime-between-Friday-and-Sunday! I might just be able to stick with that over the summer…the sunshine is just too distracting and I tend to put off sitting and physically typing up until last minute and then find I dislike the photos I’ve taken for said post (which is what happened this week the original ones were really dark).

Still, I’ve got a new needlework butterfly to share with you! I became quite attached to the teeny tiny Dingy Skipper I met during my recent exploration of Penhale Dunes and I wanted to create one to add to my ever growing collection of handmade butterflies. 

This is #14 on my Embroidered Butterfly challenge – only 62 more to go!!! If I can make at least one a month that means it should only take like another four or so years!

Dingy Skipper (Erynnis tages) is found in Britain and Ireland but becoming kinda rare. Its grey-brown wings are covered with mottled brown markings and two lines of white spots.

Continue reading “Embroidered Butterfly #14 {Dingy Skipper}” →

Raising a surprise Small Tortoiseshell

On By ArtyMissKIn Conservation, Photography9 Comments

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}

On By ArtyMissKIn Photography8 Comments

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}” →

Floral folklore #2

On By ArtyMissKIn Photography5 Comments

Hello my friends! 

How are you?!

I skipped last week because its been so sunny here its really quite distracting and I love it, the plants have tripled in size and I’ve already had ten different types of butterfly in the garden!

This week I thought I’d post another floral folklore, I’m always surprised by how folklore changes the way we interact with the plants around us so I’ve chosen three plants currently flowering in the wildspace all with purple-ish hues!

These lovely little Cuckoo flowers (Cardamine pratensis) pop up all over the garden in spring and they are so delicate, in English speaking countries they actually have a few other names – Lady’s smock/Mayflower or Milkmaids and are actually a member of the same plant family as cabbages!

Continue reading “Floral folklore #2” →

The Wizard Tree {One frame}

On By ArtyMissKIn Photography4 Comments

Hello my Friends!

This weeks One Frame post was snapped while hiking through one of my favourite hiking spots. 

I call it The Wizard Tree! 

Is it just a tree with amusingly placed leaves or is it a wizard, turned into a tree during a wizards duel?!

Either way its a fabulous tree taken in a small, but beautiful place called St Breward which is a key part of Bodmin Moor and sits happily about 700ft above sea level (one of the highest points in Cornwall).

Its an amazing place to walk and has a rugged beauty, it is an Area of Oustanding Natural Beauty (ANOB) as well as a Site of Special Scientific Interest and a great place to spot Pearl-bordered fritillary butterflies.

There are many beautiful trees, but this is one of my favourites!

So yeah, that’s it for this week, remember sometimes its just nice to be a tree watcher. Hopefully next weeks post is either gonna be a new embroidered butterfly or possibly some more plant folklore!

Thank you so much for reading this post, and I wish you a prosperous week ahead!

ps. if you like my nature photography and fancy seeing more of it I’ve joined insta @artymissk maybe see you there!

Venturing onto Instagram

On By ArtyMissKIn Announcements

Hello my friends! 

I hope you had a good Easter! 

This weeks post is more of an announcement…I’ve finally given in and set myself up an instagram account!!

It’s weirdly one of those things that I’ve been putting off for ages and now I think about it I don’t know why?! I haven’t had a social media account for like two or so years but I needed a way to communicate with people in my conservation groups thats quicker better than email (and easier to send photos).

So, if you like my nature photos and want to see more like them and many, many little nature related reels please come and find me on insta @artymissk

As always thank you so much for reading my friends, and have a lovely week!

Raising Emperor moths

On By ArtyMissKIn Conservation, Photography7 Comments

Hey friends! Welcome to my first Butterfly tale of 2025!!

Although to be honest its actually about moths, Emperor moths to be precise.

Lets rewind a few months…late last year I was able to watch a few Emperor moth caterpillars form their chrysalises in my garden, unfortunately the plant they were attached to became damaged in one of those really nasty storms we had and I didn’t want the little guys to end up drowning on the floor of my wildspace so I rescued them!

They’ve been living in a little netted pod in my butterfly house all winter and emerged at the beginning of April! It was so damn exciting I genuinely thought that they’d probably died in the storm, but I ended up with a gorgeous male and two gigantic females. I grow two of their favourite caterpillar food plants so it was super easy to give them both a pot of heather and meadowsweet.

The three of them all emerged within about half an hour of each other and by the evening the male was mating with one of the females and the next morning she was laying eggs! 

Continue reading “Raising Emperor moths” →

View of the Woodland River {One frame}

On By ArtyMissKIn Photography2 Comments

Hello my Friends!

Can you believe it, we’re already at the first Friday in April!? This week I thought I’d post a One Frame and it feels like an age since I posted a proper landscape shot.

This is the view as I cross over a rickety old wooden bridge into one of my favourite hiking spots called Pendrift Bottom, its basically a series of steep ups and downs with some wide-open fields, a little marsh and so many types of animals and insects. Last year I even heard my first cuckoo when I was there in the summer, and theres always slow worms and fleeting glimpses of deer in the distance.

Also the name is pretty humorous. 

It actually took this photograph last May and literally can’t wait to spend more sunny days wandering there this year.

Standing on this bridge I pretty much feel like I’m crossing the river into a magic nature filed world, like Middle Earth but with no orcs, I like to believe that if you follow this river long enough you might find Rivendell.

I hope you like this little slice of natury goodness as much as I do because it fills me a great amount of positivity and happiness. Is there anything you feel particularly blessed to be part of? 

Thank you so much for reading this post, and have a lovely, peace filled week!

Embroidered Butterfly #13 {Brimstone}

On By ArtyMissKIn Art, Needlework Bugs5 Comments

Hey friends! 

This week I’ve got a new needlework butterfly to share with you, I became quite attached to the little male brimstone that over-wintered in my butterfly house (my fun and fancy shed!) that wanted to create one to add to my ever growing collection of handmade butterflies. 

This is #13 on my Embroidered Butterfly challenge – only 63 more to go!!! If I can make at least one a month that means it should only take like another four or so years!

Continue reading “Embroidered Butterfly #13 {Brimstone}” →

Brimstone {One frame}

On By ArtyMissKIn Conservation, Photography4 Comments

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!