Photo Blog

I love observing nature through the changing seasons both in my Norfolk wildlife garden and the surrounding countryside. I blog about wildlife gardening as well as about Norfolk butterflies, wildflowers and other flora and fauna that I come across. Bookmark my Norfolk nature photo blog to keep up to date with my photographic adventures.

The Uncommonly Beautiful Common Spotted Orchid

Recently I visited Foxley Wood NWT while volunteering with Norfolk Butterfly Conservation Society on a Hawk moth event. As I arrived I spotted this beautiful Common Spotted Orchid (Dactylorhiza Fuchsii) nestled in a corner of the grassy verge.

I simply couldn't bring myself to leave without stopping to admire and photograph the group of delicately coloured Common Spotted Orchids. They must like damp weather as they have done very well here this year!

The name "Common Spotted Orchid" really doesn't do this humble, yet beautiful plant justice. There's nothing common about this diminutive Orchid at all; in fact this flower is the epitomy of subtley, daintiness, elegance and refinement.

Raising a Yellow Flag

The Yellow Iris, or Yellow Flag, Iris Pseudocorus, is one of surprisingly few native British pond Irises. The vibrant and beautiful Yellow Flag makes its home in the damp clay and loamy soils of wetlands and marshes. It thrives in the Fenland habitat of the Norfolk Broads and is widespread across the county.

Yellow Flag is rich in wildlife value, is popular with bees and hoverflies which pollinate its hermaphrodite flowers, The drooping yellow tepals provide a landing platform for insects. The dark yellow patch in the centre, surrounded by a zigzag line acts as a guide directing the insect towards the nectar source. It also acts as a caterpillar host plant for seven moth species including the Belted Beauty Red Sword-grass and Water Ermine. The remaining four moth caterpillars live inside its thick reed-like stems.

Frequently known as "Daggers" it has several other traditional names including Segg, Swordgrass also referencing its blade-like foliageas well as False Acorus, Fleur-de-lis, Water Flag.

It has a long folklore tradition, being said to be the original inspiration for the fleur-de-lis used in heraldic designs. In Ireland it was believed to avert evil and bunches were hung up outside doors during the feast of Corpus Christi. The rhizomous roots yield a black dye and ink and are extremely acrid. Traditionally the dried roots were also used medicinally as a cathartic, emetic and as an astrigent to halt bleeding, while the roast seeds were used to make a form of coffee, though there is uncertainty as to its toxicity. The plant also generated a pleasant essential oil, which was often used to dilute that of the Sweet Flag, Acorus calamus, giving rise to Yellow Flag’s alternative name of False Acorus

Sadly this species tends to gets overlooked by mainstream garden centres in favour of more popular blue-coloured Irises, which are actually Asian in origin, not native to the UK so do not afford the same value to wildlife.

With a little care Yellow Flag Iris can be a wonderful addition to most wildlife garden ponds. In particularly favourable conditions the Yellow Flag Iris will thrive and can become a little over vigorous, so growing it in containers is a good idea to avoid it taking off too dramatically, if you have a smaller ponds or bog gardens.

Fortunately my pond margin has plenty of room and mixed companion planting is providing competition from other marginal plants such as Purple Loosestrife, Meadowsweet, Water mint, Reedmace (Typha), true Bulrush (Scirpus Lacustris) to name but a few. So far this approach seems to have kept the pond margin mix nicely balanced.

Alternative names: Daggers, False Acorus, Flagon, Fleur-de-lis, Jacob’s Sword, Segg, Swordgrass, Water Flag, Water Skegs, Yellow iris, Yellow Flag

Moth Caterpillar host for: Belted beauty, Crescent, Crinan Ear, Red Sword-grass, Rush Wainscot, Water Emine, Webb’s Wainscot

Broad-bodied is beautiful...

Meanwhile our faithful Broad-bodied Chaser dragonflies, Libellula depressa, have returned for another season. This yellow coloured female has been busy making herself at home amongst our new, wildlife-friendly winter meadow Campion flowers in the sunny, sheltered west-facing Old Rose Garden…

Female Broad-bodied Chaser dragonfly, Libella depressa, perched on Campion in our winter meadow. Immature males are a similar colour — Female Broad-bodied Chaser dragonfly, *Libella depressa,* perched on Campion in our winter meadow. Immature males are a similar colour

Broad-bodied Chasers were the very first dragonfly to show up, arriving in the first week of June 2014, our ponds first season. According to the British Dragonfly Society and Brook’s fieldguide they are an early species that prefer shallow sunny ponds and lake margins. Broad-bodied Chasers are common and widespread across Britain, although they have become less common in Fenland districts owing to the loss of farm ponds. The species becomes less abundant in ponds in late successional stages, but can be encouraged back by clearing marking vegetation.

The wide dusky blue abdomen of the male is unmistakeable. Both immature males and females are yellow and black and look a little like Four-spotted chales but lack the additional dark spots.

In the immature stage Broad-bodied Chasers may wander widely and can be found among hedgerows. Once adults sucessfully mate at a site the male will adopt and guard the pond as his territory, only moving on if he runs out of luck. They certainly proved very obliging to photograph to as they perch frequently in between laps of the pond, returning to the same stem each time to look out for rivals and females. When in residence they’re highly territorial on their short patrols, I even observed one successfully see off a larger passing Southern Hawker dragonfly.

Male Broad-bodied Chaser dragonfly, Libellula depressa, the very first species to arrive and colonise our wildlife pond. — Male Broad-bodied Chaser dragonfly, *Libellula depressa,* the very first species to arrive and colonise our wildlife pond.

A female Broad-bodied Chaser ovipositing in the clear water of our wildlife pond in early June 2014

Here there be Emperor Dragonflies

Its been a big week for Nar Cottage's wildlife garden as we discovered that our first "home grown" dragonfly had completed its three year lifecycle. This photo is of an Emperor dragonfly, Anax imperator, nymph "exuvia". That’s the exoskeletal shell left behind after the dragonfly nymph transforms into an adult dragonfly and emerges as a winged adult. The Emperor's emergence takes place overnight so sadly we didn't see it happening.

According to the British Dragonfly Society Emperor dragonflies are highly territorial and rarely settle, even feeding on the wing, while Brook’s fieldguide states that “Its vigour, agression and agility in flight are unequalled in Britain”. Emperors look very like other Hawker species, particularly the Southern Hawker, but often fly with a drooping rear abdomen and their apple-green thorax, which lacks the black stripes of other species, help to distinguish it. The female has a green abdomen, which may turn blue in hot weather.

Emperors are known for being early pioneers of new ponds and were one of the very first visitors to our brand new, bare-earthed pond back in 2013. Three years on and our pond looks very different, now teeming with aquatic life and surrounded by lush native plants and wildflowers that have spread out to cover much of its surface.

Our original Emperor dragonfly, Anax imperator, ovipositing on the base of reeds in 2013 — Our original Emperor dragonfly, *Anax imperator,* ovipositing on the base of reeds in 2013

In line with their reputation for preferring clear water, to date the Emperor dragonflies haven’t returned since that very first season, but we continued to see lots of Broad-bodied Chasers, Southern Hawkers as well as various damselflies about. Emperor dragonflies will even predate upon other Chaser dragonflies, so I hope our population of those survives its emergence!

Springtime in der Eifel

Spring has well and truly sprung with a couple of weeks of glorious weather in the UK and the continent. Here a small selection from a short trip to the beautiful Eifel Nationalpark on the German-Belgian border, with lush meadows dripping in springtime wildflowers and vivid dappled green woodland trails bursting with life...

New season's foliage in deciduous woodland on the slopes

Apple tree in blossom at Meerfelder Maar

Apple tree blossom on a hot sunny circular walk around a 45 thousand year old Meerfelder Maar - a volcanic crater and lake or "Maar".

Wildflowers and butterflies were very similar to those in the UK with cuckoo flower, dandelions, stitchwort and marsh marigolds and dandelions in the downland meadows.

An enticing dappled woodland trail on the Lieserpfad hiking route

Big ... Shaggy ... Moss

Sometimes its all about the light, about the light, and mossy woodland...

No really, "Big shaggy moss" is the name of Rhytidiadelphus triquetrus, which grows on calcareous ground in woodland, and also on acidic ground in woods of native pine (Pinus). It can also be found in open grassland on chalk, on sand dunes and in churchyards, so is a natural contender for the Corsican pine and sand dune habitat of Holkam and Wells-next-the-Sea beach and SSSI.

Signs of Spring - Insect and Amphibian Emergence

At last...! Some milder days in between the blustery weather, ones when you can really feel the sun on your back. Slowly more signs of spring are present. Insects start to emerge from their overwintering. Though I've yet to photograph my first butterfly of the season (a brimstone on 25th March) I've enjoyed watching out for the early emerging bugs, bees and, that renowned augury of springtime, the first amphibian frogspawn.

My first sign of early spring insect life was this female Minotaur beetle. One of 8 British "Dor" beetles, she emerges in March and roams woodland and pastureland. Despite their size and fearsome looks, Minotaur beetles are herbivores feeding on ruminant dung. After mating she will dig a burrow up to a metre long to lay her eggs.

My second insect sighting was while out gardening. I saw the most gigantic queen buff-tailed bumblebee crash land and nectar furiously on my white crocus. She clambered across our daisy-filled "Meadow Mat" at a surprising rate of knots, looking like she was on a mission, perhaps seeking a nest site to establish her colony for the season. Sometimes known as the Large earth bumblebee from their latin name Bombus terrestris, Buff-tailed bumblebees are one of the earliest bees to emerge in spring and also among the largest to visit gardens in Europe.

Looking closely you can see some mites hitching a ride on her thorax. Unlike some mites, they are not parasitic but are in fact harmless detrivores, who survive by living in the bumblebee nest and providing a cleaning service to the colony, feeding on old beeswax and other detritus.

And last but not least, frogspawn arrived to our pond on the 26th March this year, 4 days later than last year and in smaller quantities. With a greater amount of protective pond plants established, hopefully the tadpoles will stand a better chance this year against our hungry newt population.

In The Bleak Midwinter....

Its January, normally the time of Jack Frost and blankets of white, mittens and snowballs...well not tis year!

El Nino seems to have put paid to all that white stuff in East Anglia for 2016 , which could be one of the warmest (not to mention wettest and windiest!) on record in the UK.

The mild weather also has our plantlife well and truly fooled, with primroses and daffodils nodding alongside snowdrops and aconites. So, instead of a classic snowy winter's scene, this January's blog is of a winter's walk amongst the silver birch catkins at Narborough.

Nodding catkins, a harbinger of spring still some months away

Evergreen bramble leaves are a welcome sight of green

A rare blue sky day amidst the brutal sou'westerlies of winter 2016

Mild winters can cause unusual numbers of pests

Digital Photography and Copyright in the Internet Age

We now live in a digital age, one where copyrighted data and images can flow freely across borders, even all around the world, in the blink of an eye.

But what does that really mean for our copyright, what are the risks of image theft, is it safe to use an image we find and how can we protect our intellectual property right?

This article explores some of the key facts and issues surrounding using digital images on the internet that we need to know.

Who Owns An Image's Copyright?

In the vast majority of situations the person who creates an image (“the creator”), such as somebody who takes a photo, is the owner of the original copyright.The Designs, Copyright and Patents Act of 1988 enshrined this right in UK law. Copyright holders can grant permission to use "license" or transfer ownership ("assign") their copyright to others.

Do all images have a copyright?

Legally, copyright lasts for the lifetime of the creator plus 70 years after the year of their death, and many older digitised images from image libraries had copyrights renewed, so in practice most images will be held under copyright.

What Does This Mean For An Image User?

In a nutshell - respect the image owner and ensure you have permission.

In practice, almost any image you find on the internet is likely to be protected by copyright, so it is only safe to use it if you are sure there is specific permission to do so in place, for example through a licence or in the terms and conditions of the website supplying the image. Remember, you are responsible for ensuring that you have permission to use the image. Its safest to start out with the assumption it is copyrighted.

At its most basic level, if you want to use a photo, in any form, you need to seek permission from the copyright owner. Even if it's a friend’s photo or is to be used for non-commercial purposes such as downloading a photo to use as a desktop screensaver.

Remember, you are responsible for ensuring that you have permission to use the image. Its safest to start out with the assumption it is copyrighted and if you’re not sure – always ask first!

So can I use images at all?

Don't get too worried, just sharing a link is okay, and is of course what social media is meant to be all about. The Court of Justice of the European Union ruled that internet users should be free to share links to material that has been published online with the permission of the rights holder

However “Tagging”, that is displaying a hosted image or copying and hosting images on another website, probably does constitute copyright infringement.

Don't forget also that modifying someone else's photo, even if it's by a friend, and even if it's only for a joke, could well be an infringement of the image owner's copyright, so do get their permission first.

The Rise Of Image Theft

The rise and rise of the internet and social media has also unleashed a wave of image theft, that perhaps in some ways might be compared to video piracy when technology first enabled video tapes to be copied.

For some psychological reason, activities carried out on the internet often don't seem to be ascribed the same weight that they would be in the real world and seem to be perceived as not "counting", perhaps because the victim is invisible at the time and the perpetrators may experience a false sense of anonymity that liberates them from a sense of consequences or repercussions.

Certain fellow photographers, for what are to me quite incomprehensible reasons, have even taken to stealing other photographer's images and passing them off as their own on image sharing sites and social media in order to pad out their portfolios, or perhaps simply to gain a fleeting ego boost. Of course such antics were always to be seen in not a few camera club competitions in the physical world too, but the technology of the internet world has created a step-change by making this so very easy to do at the click of a mouse button.

Of course such image theft is unethical in the extreme, cheating both victim from credit and also the perpetrator themselves from gaining the chance to learn and improve their own work. More seriously, such an act is unequivocally a legal copyright infringement.

Sadly there is also of course a more sinister side and the issue of "professional" image theft by criminal gangs for all manner of purposes which is even harder to spot and combat, although recent search by image capabilities are now starting to make tracking down such illegal activities easier.

Photographing Art Work

Pictures at an Exhibition(the Artist had provided his work for a charity event and agreed to photo coverage) — Pictures at an Exhibition
(the Artist had provided his work for a charity event and agreed to photo coverage)

One thing for photographers to be mindful of is accidentally infringing another's copyrighted work.

If you photograph a creative piece of art under copyright and it is the main subject of your image then you may inadvertantly be infringing another’s copyright.

What Does This Mean For Digital Photographers?

In a nutshell - be aware, protect yourself and assess the risks.

Yes, your copyright is protected by law online as in the real world. But once you publish an image online, it is "out there" in the cyberspace for others to enjoy, share, comment on, use and inevitably, human nature being what it is, potentially misuse.

You of course stand to benefit from exposure, kudos and social media "likes", but at the expense of a certain loss of control over your image once it enters the public domain. That is unavoidable and to a certain degree that risk has to be accepted as an "occupational hazard".

There are of course sensible precautions you can and should take to protect your images and copyright.

Check Websites' T's and C's

Firstly DO spare the few moments it takes to check the terms and conditions on any internet, image sharing or social media website when you join before you start posting images and check back periodically as terms do change and get updated.

Quite a few have surprisingly unfavourable copyright terms and conditions for photographers that at the very least enable them to make your images available for others to use, without your prior permission or notice.

The worst might even attempt to assign your copyright over to themselves which would leave defamation or privacy laws your only recourse in a dispute if your image were then to be used in a way you don't like.

Whatever you do, DON’T surrender or give your copyright away, this undermines the value of you time and effort and photography as a creative genre.

Thankfully following a backlash by many photographers against unfavourable terms of use, several of the more established sites have recently been improving their terms.

Will "watermarking" my image give me more protection?

In the UK despite misconceptions you don’t have to watermark your image to assert your copyright as its creator, that said, it is a good idea to do so in order to ensure that people are clear that copyright exists on the image and that they know who to contact to obtain permission.

So it is worth copyright marking your work, but not excessively, heavy watermarks often destroy enjoyment of images and in reality don't prevent determined thieves as these days clever software programs exist that can completely remove watermarks.

Enforcing Copyright

With the internet now established as part of everyday life and being accessed on tablets, smart phones outside the home, it's now easier than ever to republish copyrighted works. So it is not surprising that copyright breach cases have risen so dramatically, but if you are caught using an image without permission and infringing another's copyright there could be serious financial and legal consequences.

On social media there is a growing backlash by photographers who have fallen foul of image theft rallying against the misattribution of other photographer's work.

With perpetrators now being more easy to track down through image search an increasing number of culprits are being brought to task and "named and shamed" publicly as well as receiving lifetime bans from sites.

Some of the big photo libraries have been using reverse image searches to track down illegal usage of their photos and are retrospectively billing the web designers.

As technology continues to advance and laws and policies start to catch up with technology, people who think copyright infringement will not be detected are increasingly likely to get a nasty surprise. The internet is now far less anonymous than you might think, with cookies embedded almost ubiquitously, in many respects individuals' activities online are tracked far more extensively online than they can be in real life. So infringers do run a genuine and increasing risk of being discovered, shamed and potentially even being pursued through the courts as a consequence.

Hopefully the situation for photographers will continue to improve as awareness of the issues around data, copyright and image theft continues to grow, and bad behaviour of all kinds on the internet becomes increasingly socially unacceptable.

Further Information And Disclaimer

While this article is written in good faith, I am not a lawyer cannot guarantee 100% factual accuracy and this does not constitute any sort of legal guidance. If you are in a copyright dispute it is best to seek qualified advice.

If you are interested in the topics explored by this article here are some of the resources that are available:

The UK Government's Intellectual Property and Copyright Law Website

A helpful plain English IPO Factsheet called "Copyright Notice: digital images, photographs and the internet" (Number: 1/2014 Updated: March 2014)

www.stopstealingphotos.com - one photographer's battle to challenge image theft got them bullied and temporarily barred from Facebook.

A plagiarism today article on Facebook and Copyright following one victims experience and how Facebook staff were themselves unaware of copyright rules.

Facebook – search for photo stealers

Lone Pine in Lava Field

I was spoilt for choice in picking December's photo of the month, having enjoyed a repeat festive trip to Cologne Weihnachts Markt (blog followers, the piano man was still there playing) a beautiful walk at Cley beach as well as having a multitude of landscape photos from my second visit to Los Gigantes in Tenerife. Yet it was this simple, stark shot of a lone pine tree in a blasted lava landscape on the flanks of Mount Teide volcano that has stayed with me.

Perhaps because it simultaneously represents both the fragility of nature and its stubborn resilience. The barren lava flow depicts the sheer magnitude of devastation that nature can unleash - despite Man's hubris these are forces well beyond the power of humankind to influence or control. Yet in that small, vibrant splash of green the image also contains a germ of hope. However bleak the landscape may become, nature soon starts to fight back; this young little pine tree is the first tree in a slow process of recolonisation of the lava-blasted the volcanic foothills centuries after the violent 1798 eruption that created this strange landscape.

Autumn Haze

Autumn is a capricious season, with shortening days cloaked in gold, rust and greytone. Some days dance lightly, soft and still, cloaked in a gentle warm haze, lulling us that summer's still close by. Others lurk darkly, oppressive and leaden, lumbering irrecovably on towards winter.

Farewell to Summer

"Sleep thou, and I will wind thee in my arms.
So doth the Woodbine the sweet Honeysuckle
Gently entwist;"

A gentle farewell to summer courtesy of Shakespeare and A Midsummer Night's Dream

Chiaroscuro Angel

Chiaroscuro, from the Italian words for light "chiaro" and dark "scuro", is an artistic term describing the use of strongly contrasting light and dark shades in an image or composition. Sculpting light creates shadow, bringing out the contours of a subject in relief and adding a sense of depth and dimension. What better subject to practice on than a beautiful sculpture in Rome's Pantheon, just before the lights were switched off for the night....

Hunstanton Sundog

Parhelion at Sunset - Hunstanton, Norfolk

On my last landscape trip I witnessed a truly beautiful natural phenomenon. As I arrived at Hunstanton beach and gazed at the sunset it appeared as if there were not one but two setting suns in the sky, both positioned low on the horizon, the second with a hint of a rainbow-hued glimmer in an arc shape. This optical atmospheric effect is called a parhelion, or sun dog and is one of many types of ice halos caused by the refraction and reflection of sunlight through small ice crystals high up in the atmosphere. I discovered that the atmospheric conditions had also created the faint sun pillar in the photograph, which is not caused by a vertical ray of light at all, but by the glinting of many tiny hexagonal-shaped plate ice crystals, the same shape of ice crystals that create sundogs.

Many thanks to atmospheric optics expert Les Cowley for his assistance in identifying the specific type of atmospheric optical effects I observed and photographed in this image and to the clear scientific explanations provided by his website of the many unusual atmospheric phenomenon that can be observed by day and night. Click here to see a scientific diagram explaining the optical effects in my image

Summer Sea Lavender Sunset

Late July into August, the oft-times bleak and blustery North Norfolk Coast becomes cloaked with a carpet of lilac sea lavender flowers and paints a vivid picture of tranquil beauty at sunset...

Meet the Skippers - A Photographic Identification Guide to Skipper Butterflies

Ssshh…Don't tell the Essex Skippers, we're in Norfolk!

These charming, vivid orange little butterflies have extended their range recently and seem perfectly happy living two counties further North than their namesake county. At this time of year they can readily be seen "skipping" amongst the hedgerow flowers and meadow grasses of East Anglia alongside their similar looking cousins, the Small Skippers and Large Skippers, sometimes in the company of the larger meadow species such as Meadow Brown, Gatekeeper and Ringlet butterflies.

Skipper butterfly identification is a challenge. All three of our most common Skipper butterflies are small, similarly coloured and rather flighty, in fact the Essex Skipper and Small Skipper look so alike that the Essex Skipper was only recognised as a separate butterfly species in 1889. So just how do you tell these three oft-seen Skipper butterfly species apart?

Get a Mug Shot

The surest way to identify and tell the three most common Skipper butterflies apart is to get a photo or good look of the underside of the tips of the butterfly's antennae. The Essex Skipper has very distinctive, inky black antenna underside tips; whereas the similarly sized Small Skipper has orange-brown coloured antennae underside tips. Although the Large Skipper also generally has black tips, its antennae ends are usually more bulbous than those of the Essex and Small Skipper, these two features can’t always be relied on as definitive as they can sometimes vary. The key diagnostic antennae feature to look out for to identify the Large Skipper is that it always has “hooked” or twirly pointed antennae tips, whereas those of both the Essex and Small Skipper are stubby and rounded.

Essex Skipper has black antennae underside tips

Essex Skipper's black antennae tips are rounded or stubby

Small Skipper has orange-brown antennae underside tips

Large Skipper has pointed, twirly antennae tip ends, usually black

Skippers are territorial, living in colonies and can be quite confiding little butterflies when perching or basking. However, as their name suggests, they do have a frustrating habit of zooming vertically off their perch at the slightest movement and skipping off before we get the viewing angle we want, so here are some other perspectives and identification tips.

"Check" out their Wing Markings

The Large Skipper is most readily identifiable from its chequered pattern wing markings. As well as being larger, Large Skipper butterflies appear brighter and more robust than then smaller Essex and Small Skipper butterflies. In contrast both the Small Skipper and Essex Skipper have relatively plain orange wings. Male Small and Essex skippers can be distinguished from each other by their sex bands (see more below). Females are trickier but one other clue to aid separation, though not always a reliable indicator, is that in Essex Skippers sometimes the dark wing edging bleeds up more heavily into the wing veins. Below are two Essex Skipper photos, one with the dark banding radiating into the veins, one without.

Large Skipper's large size and contrasting chequered marking makes it the easiest of the three most common skipper butterflies to identify

Essex skipper female, sometimes the dark borders radiate along the veins

Large Skipper's chequered wing markings displayed from side on as it drinks nectar with its proboscis

Small Skipper has plain wings when viewed side on

Essex Skipper female basking in evening light

Identifying Skipper Butterflies In Profile

The Large Skipper's chequered pattern is even visible with its wings closed so it should still be readily distinguishable when perching or roosting. Essex and Small Skippers are harder to identify in profile as neither have clear distinguishing marks on their underwings and they are of a very similar size. However, according to Lewington and other field guides, the Essex Skipper's undersides are more straw-coloured than those of the Small Skipper, which may appear more beige or buff. Be especially cautious if using this to distinguish the Essex and Small Skipper, as the look of the underwing can be affected by light conditions and indvidual variations

Essex Skipper has a more straw-coloured underwing than the Small Skipper

Small Skipper has a more buff-coloured underwing (image taken in flat light)

Large Skipper has a checkered pattern visible on its underwings

Use Wing Bands to Identify Male Essex Skippers and Small Skippers

All three male Skipper butterflies have a black gender or scent band line marking on their front wings. This can be particularly helpful in distinguishing an Essex Skipper from a Small Skipper butterfly if you're unable to view them head on. The male Small Skipper has a prominent black gender band that is long and cureved whereas the Essex Skipper's gender band is much less conspicuous, short, straigt and runs parallel to the edge of its forewing. The male Large Skippers also have very prominant gender bands and at a distance, when fresh from emergence, might even potentially be confused with Gatekeepers due to their vivid orange colour.

Male Small Skipper has a longer, curved, more prominent gender band

Male Essex Skipper has a shorter, straight, inconspicuous sex band that runs parallel to the edge of the wing

A Word of Caution

There is always a degree of individual and regional variation in the markings and colouration on butterflies’ wings and you can find gradual blends between regional variations too. Butterfly markings can also be impacted by the weather while pupating (e.g. extremely hot weather) and fade with age, so sometimes it identification can be a careful process of elimination.

A further peril is only getting a single shot. The camera most definitely can lie, or at least mislead. Sometimes the camera angle or perspective can be deceptive and conceal a sex band or narrow antennae tips. So a diagnostic feature could be present but not necessarily visible. A lack of evidence isnt always evidence of lack, as the saying goes.

This Large Skipper has faint wing markings and its antennae end tips aren’t visible from this camera angle

By way of example, this Skipper was initially mis-identified as a Small Skipper due to a russet brown marking on the end of its antenna and a seeming absence of the twirly hooked end tips.

However a closer inspection after boosting contrast and saturation in the image revealed the very faint presence of the arc of pale checks characteristic of a Large Skipper and a darkened forewing-tip.

It appears that the hooked antennae tips were curling outwards and backwards so from this perspective both were concealed from the camera.

The moral of the story being of course that its always worth getting as many images as you can from as many angles as you can, starting far back at a distance that you know will not disturb the butterfly and moving slowly avoiding sudden jerky movements that will cause the butterfly to skip away. Even if its small in the frame you can always zoom in for ID purposes and discard the image once an ID has been made.

Non Visual Characteristics Can also Eliminate a Suspect

Distribution

Both the Small Skipper and Essex Skipper have expanded their ranges northwards. However, the Essex Skipper is still the more south-easterly of the two species, being seen as far north as the Humber and west to the Severn Estuary. The Small Skipper, like the Large Skipper can be seen even in Wales and Cornwall and as far north as Northumberland recently.

Flight Times

The Large Skipper is the early bird of the three, flying from late May, peaking in mid July and ending in late August. The Small appears next, flying from early June until early September. The Essex Skipper has the narrowest flight period, being seen on the wing from the end of June until the end of August. Bear in mind that flight times can vary significantly by region typically being later further north and also seasonally as butterflies may sometimes take advantage of favourable spring and early summer conditions or respond to adverse conditionas by emerging earlier or later.

Host Plants

All three species are single brooded and feed on various grasses such as Yorkshire-fog (Small Skipper), Creeping Soft-grass (Essex and Small Skippers) and Cock's foot (Large Skipper). Early stage larvae overwinter in the sheaths of long grasses and winter cutting and "tidying" can negatively affect populations. For more information visit www.butterfly-conservation.org

Resources

My own records and observations in Oxfordshire and Norfolk

Butterfly Conservation Society - Species Information and Factsheets:

R Lewington - Pocket Guide to the Butterflies of Great Britain and Ireland

Large Skipper nectaring on a creeping thistle

A Silver-Studded Summer

It seems that summer has been slow to start, but nature can't afford to wait and one of Norfolk's rarest butterflies has taken to the wing pretty much on cue. Silver-studded blue butterflies have one of the most amazing symbiotic lifecycles you could Imagine. Frequenting heathland, they plant their eggs on fresh low lying gorse or heather and depend upon two specific species of black ant, Lasius niger and Lasius alienus to complete their lifecycles.

silver-studded blue butterfly on ribwort plantain

Silver-studded blue butterflies live in small colonies. They are a sedentary species, tending to stay local and fly low to the ground. Unlike the blue males, female studded-blue butterflies are brown in colour, but both share the same silvery blue scales in the black spots on the underside of their hind wing for which the butterfly gets its name.

Adults survive only a few days each summer, just long enough to mate and lay eggs. The caterpillars hatch in spring and are and nurtured by the black ants in exchange for a sugary secretion produced by a special gland. The caterpillar pupates underground in the ants nest before emerging as an adult.

male silver-studded blue butterfly amongst grasses

On the Trail of the Swallowtail

Sometimes as a naturalist and photographer, certain subjects remain so stubbornly elusive that they become a bit of a nemesis. Britain's largest and most iconic species "papilio machaon britannicus", our very own British swallowtail, was one such unlucky species for me. So much so, that it took me some five years to achieve my first photograph of this amazingly beautiful butterfly.

swallowtail butterfly grooming proboscis

Our British swallowtail butterfly is actually a subspecies of the European strain that has adapted itself to use the delicate and somewhat sensitive fenland plant milk parsley as its caterpillar host plant. Once comparatively widespread in the south east, its range is now restricted to the Norfolk fens.

Many of you will know that butterflies are one of my favourite wildlife species and I'm a passionate supporter of the Butterfly Conservation Society, which does a great job of raising awareness about the threats to this beautiful animal. Though scarce, I live in Norfolk, the same county that this elusive butterfly calls home. So just how hard can it really be to see one?

Well timing is everything they say. The swallowtail is single brooded and has a relatively short flight period, from around mid May to mid June. If you add to that the need for reasonably clement weather, the window of opportunity is fairly narrow. In my defence, years one and two of my five year wash out were before I had relocated to live in Norfolk.

My natural history and local knowledge was still comparatively limited, and I was restricted solely to weekend trips to Norfolk targeted for the start of its flight period. These were planned using field guides, with the sole aim of seeing this amazing butterfly. Sadly that was just as we entered that phase where our winters were harsh, spring arrived late and the weather utterly uncooperative. Thus for two years in a row, bleak grey skies, cold temperatures and high winds put the kaibosh on my naive optimism and my target remained stubbornly and mysteriously elusive...

Year three and I relocated to Norfolk, surely now I would just stumble across one right? Cue multiple trips to Hickling, How Hill and Strumpshaw, all known Swallowtail hotspots over the course of the next three years. Yet these attempts attempts to witness the beauty of this butterfly were always ill-fated. I forget how many times I met people and heard them say frustratingly, "oh there was one just down that path there " . Of course said Swallowtail invariably had vanished by the time I reached the spot, for all my luck, the Swallowtail might have been a capricious sprite from the cast of Shakespeare's a midsummer's nights dream.

Last year life simply overtook me. My hunt started far too late in the season for success. So this year, I was determined, was to be the year of the Swallowtail. Come what may I was determined, I would find this iconic, awe-inspiring butterfly, no matter what!

Spring this year was again cool and I was nervous, conditions were far from auspicious for a prompt emergence or a bountiful butterfly season in Norfolk.

A visit to RSPB Strumpshaw Fen offered me my first fleeting, tantalising glimpse, but my bad luck struck again! Just as I arrived I glimpsed a large custard yellow butterfly swoop in...and it was, yes! ,,,.a swallowtail swooping in and aiming to land to nectar on white violet flowers at the main entrance. But even as I approached it was immediately spooked by an over-enthusiastic visitor waving his camera at it! This tourist seemed to be the incarnation of my Swallowtail nemesis, the butterfly equivalent of the "Man from Porlock" and opportunity lost. Assured by staff that they often returned, I stood stationary, sentinel-like for over an hour. Eventually a friendly gentlemen suggested another spot where he'd seen them "only a few hours before" - so off I trooped, yet to no avail. Another Swallowtail near miss, thwarted by mischance or fate, who knew and I finally started to see the funny side of it all.

Perhaps my resignation and acceptance swung it and the gods took pity on me. I had only one last day left of even remotely suitable weather between what were quite vicious storm showers and off I went one last time on my Swallowtail mission.

Back at Strumpshaw, now a familiar friend of a reserve, I ambled around the areas I'd been shown over the years, my jacket still done up against a nippy morning chill. Mercifully, the weather stubbornly refused to close in as forecast. I dawdled up and down the footpaths for about an hour, amidst cloudy intervals and cool, breezy conditions. Eventually, quite suddenly the sun won its battle against the grey and the temperature rose sharply.

Swallowtails nectar on many pink and purple flowers including red campion, as well as yellow flag iris — Swallowtails nectar on many pink and purple flowers including red campion, as well as yellow flag iris

Suddenly, to my immense surprise and joy, an immaculate, freshly emerged swallowtail materialised from the tree canopy above, landing to nectar on some wild red campion blossoms, bouncing from flower to flower. I was taken aback by the sheer size and presence of this impressive, majestic almost magical, butterfly with its vibrant colours and bird-sized wingspan.

At last, this bird-sized stunningly beautiful butterfly posed for me, even basking, its impressive wingspread outstretched whenever the sun vanished behind the lingering cloud to warm itself up in the spring breeze.

My five year long mission was accomplished.

This freshly emerged swallowtail basked with its wings open during cloudy intervals

Spring Orchids

The arrival of May means we are entering late springtime, augering the arrival of warm days and our early orchids. Here are two you can see readily in Norfolk, the Early Purple Orchid (orchis mascula) that can be seen in ancient woodland where it is often a companion plant to bluebells, and the very small Green-Winged Orchid (Anacamptis morio), a later flowering orchid happiest in open unimproved grassland.

After the whites greens and yellows of early spring now pinker palette emerges among our countryside wildflowers. Amongst others, both the pretty red campion (silene dioica) and herb robert (geranium robertianum), one of several elegant native geranium species, come into bloom during in the month and if you're lucky, you might even see an early poppy.

Storm Clouds

We seem to be having April's weather in May this year all of a sudden, which has given me some amazing big sky scenes from my own doorstep. Here's a very simple composition, a "skyscape" image of nothing but clouds brewing into a full on storm that I took on the verge across my road in quite magical evening light.