A-Z Challenge 2015 - Butterflies 'M'

M - Meadow Brown, Monarch

You can find it in all parts of the British Isles except for the most mountainous areas. It's one of the commonest and widespread of our butterflies.

Meadow Brown butterfly (Maniola jurtina)

That one black eyespot on the forewing is unique to the meadow brown. The are is some variation with some showing two white pupils. The meadow brown  flies from June through to September, even in dull and inclement weather while many other butterflies wait out the rain.

It loves grasses, grasslands, heathland. parks and fields.

The summer/autumn migration of the Monarch butterfly (Danaus plexippus) is legendary covering, as it does, thousands of miles from the US and southern Canada to Mexico.

Monarch butterfly on a Penta flower in Texas

 Monarchs have even been transported to and bred on the International Space Station.

A milkweed butterfly, the Monarch is one of the most familiar North American butterflies. With a wing span up to 4 inches, its orange and black pattern makes it easily recognisable. 

However it is yet another butterfly that I have never seen.

Love is like a butterfly
As soft and gentle as a sigh
The multicolored moods of love are like its satin wings
Love makes your heart feel strange inside
It flutters like soft wings in flight
Love is like a butterfly, a rare and gentle thing

I feel it when you're with me
It happens when you kiss me
That rare and gentle feeling that I feel inside
Your touch is soft and gentle
Your kiss is warm and tender
Whenever I am with you I think of butterflies

Love is like a butterfly

Photo attributions:

• Meadow Brown: By a footpath in Yerdley Wood, 21 June 2009, geograph.org.uk, by Shazz - CC BY 2.0
• Monarch on a Penta: October 2011, by A Yee - CC BY 2.0

Vibrant Nature - Thematic Photography

This is the second week in a row that I have set out to take photos to match the theme. At this time in the summer there is a lot of vibrancy to be seen in nature. Here are some things that caught my eye within three miles of my home.

The air was full of house martins and swallows and it seems that they are practicing for the departure for the warmth of Africa.

Swallows/House Martins on telelephone wires

Above them stretch high voltage power lines; how they miss them in flight remains a mystery to me.

The haws and sloes light up the hedgerows wherever you look.

Haws on a hawthorn hedge

Sloes

If nothing else a bottle of sloe gin should ensure you feel vibrant.

Farmyard Cow

She certainly was making her feelings known and no - she hasn't swallowed the fence.

Lesser Burdock

The burdock in a roadside verge has picked a spot where its burrs will get picked up by man or beast and deposited elsewhere for next year's vibrant plant.

Common Knapweed

Here the knapweed has atrracted a hoverfly and a battered Meadow Brown butterfly. Below an even more battered Comma.

Comma on knapweed

But there is now danger of mistaking this vibrant butterfly.

Peacock butterfly

This one however as had a rough time somewhere even if his colours are not dimmed.

Peacock with damaged wings

This intruder from abroad has taken over whole swathes of hedgerows with a mass of vibrant shades of pink.

Indian Balsam

This yellow flower may have a common name but farmers are meant to destroy it on their fields as it poisons cattle. It thrives however in hedgerows and on uncultivated land. Bees and hoverflys love it and help to maitain its vibrancy.

Ragworth

Coming full circle on my tour it's back to the vibrant power of the sun and that created by man.

Power Pylon

But let's not forget the energy stored in the crops beneath the high voltage power lines.

Wheat field

For further injections of vibrancy don't forget to visit Carmi's Thematic Photographic 159