Glanville Fritillary.

A newly hatched Glanville Fritillary (Melitaea cixia) dries its wings on a flower in the evening sunshine after hatching. The wings are not quite fully inflated. If it makes its maiden flight to the flower on the right it will fall prey to a waiting hunting spider. Click to enlarge.

Here is a different Glanville Fritillary showing the top side of the wing taken on 12 August. This butterfly is feeding on hemp agrimony.

The Wasps

Le Port has a very rich wasp fauna which feeds on the flowers of mint and applemint, or as here on an onion flower. There is a great variation is size and appearance.

The Earthly Paradise

Divina foresta spessa e viva...

Dante Purgatorio 27

Large Blue Maculinea arion

The old camera is very small and lives on my waist belt during the day. This allows quick photography of an insect or other animal when the new, much larger camera, is elsewhere. So this afternoon at about 16:30 hrs what was thought to be a Large Blue butterfly (Maculinea arion) was spotted, trailed, photographed and its identity confirmed. This species has been extinct in Great Britain since 1979 and it has only itself to blame, having an obscure life history in which, after having lived for a time on wild thyme, the milk yielding caterpillar seduces ants into taking it into their nests to drink its milk whilst it turns carnivourous and eats their ant larvae. If everything goes well (for the lepidopteran) it pupates then emerges from the ants nest in the spring as an imago. This butterfly is not frequently seen here at Le Port but normally one or two are spotted each year. There are many ants nests in the field and care needs to be taken when mowing not to do too much damage to them... they may contain the larvae of one of these butterflies as well as adding to the diversity of the field. Ants of course requested King Solomon not to allow his army to crush them as they marched (see The Holy Koran, An Nami (The Ants) 27: 18-19) and this is the basis of the Muslim view of each animal species being a "people" in themselves with the same rights as mankind. So if Solomon avoided trampling all over them the least one can do is not cut the top off their nests with the mower.

Western Whip Snake (Coluber viridiflavus).

Click to enlarge but be careful it does not lunge out of the screen at you...

There are two species of snake at Le Port, the Viperine Snake Natrix maura which lives in and around the river where it is mistaken for a viper and consequently stoned by ignorant visitors in summer when the river is low. The other is the much larger Western Whip Snake Coluber viridiflavus. This can be seen, or more often heard, slithering away into the grass after being disturbed when sunbathing. It is very cryptic so generally will see you before you see it. One used to live in an old water pipe in one of the barns and could be seen lying on the cold earth on very hot days. The area around Le Port is ideal for this snakes as grasshoppers, lizards and insects are plentiful for the juvenile snakes and frogs, toads, and young birds for the adults. Today this snake was seen on the other side of a low wall sunbathing and was crept up on for five minutes. This one is about a meter long, possibly a few centimeters more.