Small Skipper Butterfly, Black Tailed Skimmer Dragonfly and more Orchids (13th July 2017)

Small Skipper on Betony today (Click over to enlarge)

Thursday 13th July 2017 - Hutton Roof 0900hrs to 1300hrs

Butterflies today included Small Skipper in Lancelot, also lots of Ringlets, Common Blue, Meadow Browns, Dark Green Fritillary and several of the beautiful Grayling - landing and then quickly toppling on their side!

A very special species today was a Black Tailed Skimmer Dragonfly which Robert Ashworth had over on Uberash Breast.  Its a beautiful lemon coloured dragonfly which I also had over on Lancelot a couple of weeks ago. Thanks to Robert for photo.

Black Tailed Skimmer Dragonfly seen on Uberash Breast, Hutton Roof today
Photo: Kindly shared to us by Robert Ashworth (Kendal)

Most of the atrorubens are going over very fast now and I would reckon some 50% are now at the stage of preparing to seed, although there are still one or two specials still about and this is one of the little beauties which are within the area of 55.  This is a small probable hybrid and named 65g. It lies about 2 metre from the albiflora. In the 55 area we do have 5 of the small (light green stemmed) plants. 

Specimen 65g on 13th July 2017 (Click to enlarge)

Specimen 65g on 13th July (Click over to enlarge)

The following two little beauties are again in the area of 55 and show quite a lot of lemon-petalled in their make up.  I would imagine they will have picked this up from 55 and 66 which are both close by and very strong in the lemon-petalled feature. 1 of the flowers has 22 flowers whilst the other has 23 flowers

Nice pair of lemon-petalled near to 55 (Click over to enlarge

I brought in more area today, a area I knew but not too well and was surprised to find this next little beauty, which was really well protected with bramble etc. I managed to weave in and out of these prickly protectors to finally get to the plant and photograph.

and here we have the photo of the plant after the worthwhile unravel!!

Here is a little beauty I found today and although all the lemon-petalled (or party) always show a slight red rib to the middle of the yellow petal on this plant the red rib goes right through and gives another dimension to the plant.

"Red Ribbing" on this plant (Click over to enlarge)

We are getting more and more of the "Rust Disease" and here you see a plant which is totally infested to the lower sections, yet at the moment the buds of the plant still look OK, now whether or not they will make it is another matter, but certainly interesting.

Rust disease mainly seems to affect Helleborines, more so than atrorubens for some reason, however after saying that our "star" lempet which was Specimen 66 was this year taken down with rust disease.

This is a plant I found today, although I do see it usually on several plants daily.

Rust Disease (Click over to enlarge)

The last post of the day is this little beauty I found today, coming through all bent and twisted but nevertheless a cracker.