Three Tankas For Two on a Common Theme.

I
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Summer or Winter

Two cars come to the poplars -

Two into one goes

Secret love by the river -

I cut the disordered grass.

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II


Summer or Winter


Two cars come to the poplars -


Two into one goes


Create the beast with two backs -


I cut the disordered grass.
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III


He cuts the grass there


By the wave that runs forever


Where we were wild life:


There man, woman, beast, lizard


Dishevelled our lives.




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"I am one, Sir, that comes to tell you your daughter and the Moor are now making the beast with two backs." 
Iago in Othello, Act I scene 1.

Identification Problems with Fritillaries.

The fritillaries can be difficult to identify and if it were not for the fact some larvae of very similar species feed on different plants it would be tempting to say that fritillaries are over classified. The problem is also complicated by  a lot of intra-specific variation. This blog has used photographs to identify butterflies with a quick ID photograph being taken as soon as possible from which the identity of the butterfly can be ascertained - before getting on with the "intimate portraits". With the fritillaries two photographs are needed of each individual because both the underside and topside markings are often critical to identification. The initial problem was that, although photographs of both top and bottom side were taken, looking at them later on the computer it was not possible to be sure that two sequential photographs  were the same individual. To overcome this problem a waste photograph is now taken between different butterflies to indicate the change. It now seems probable that there are three species of fritillary in the field, the Glanville fritillary easily identified by its very regular pattern and spots on the underside; the knapweed fritillary identified by the large lunule on the upper fore wing; a third difficult to identify fritillary which is probably the meadow fritillary but could be heath or Provencal fritillary. The latter is unlikely because the range of that species seems to be further east than Le Port. The relatively weak markings suggest a meadow fritillary is the most likely of the three species and the underside markings seem to be most similar to this species. The heath fritillary remains a possibility because the species is so varied.

Later on the same afternoon I finally photographed a heath fritillary (Mellicta athalia) bringing the total number of fritillary species flying over the field to four.(Glanville, knapweed, meadow and heath,)

                                          Click to enlarge.
Above: unidentified fritillary on ragwort, this is probably the meadow fritillary Mellicta parthenoides.


Below: underside of what is probably meadow fritillary but this is not the same individual as the one in the photograph above - click on images to enlarge and get a better view of the detail.

Click to enlarge

Click to enlarge




Heath fritillary (Mellicta athalia) I.D. photograph.

Intimate Portraits V

Glanville Fritillary (Melitaea cinxia)

                                                 click to enlarge




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Intimate Portraits IV

Battered by life - a Sooty Copper (Heodes tityrus) enjoys a buttercup - Yea! we know the feeling...

                                                  click to enlarge

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Intimate Portraits III

Metallic beetle on flowering grass stem in breezy meadow: (See Haiku XXXIX for 1st June - above)

                                                 click to enlarge

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Intimate Portraits II

Up close and personal with a Knapweed fritillary (Melitaea phoebe)

                                                 click to enlarge

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Intimate Portraits I

Grass flower and  Knapweed fritillary (Melitaea phoebe)

                                            click to enlarge




New Camera.

This year summer had difficulty extracating itself from winter for although by April 27th - the day of the wave at Beaulieu - the temperature had reached 26c, a week later on 5th May it was down to 2c with wet snow. By 20th May it was warming up again and large numbers of fritillaries were seen in the field. These were of two species, the Glanville fritillary seen in earlier years, but also rather lightly marked Knapweed fritillaries (Melitaea phoebe). These were identified by the total lack of any black spots on the hindwing, just some reddish orange ones. A number of these butterflies appeared to be newly hatched and a rather bright brick red, with both sexes seeming determined to mate but not seeming to know how... This pair of Knapweed fritillaries had a particularly desperate look in their eyes.

"Its that look in your eyes..." click to enlarge.

A blue butterfly was photographed because it did not look quite like the others I had seen. Examination of the photograph allowed identification of Chapman's Blue (Agrodiaetus thersites).  This butterfly looks like a common blue except that it lacks a black spot on the underside forewing just above the head. Compare with the common blue on this blog, August 25th 2008.

click to enlarge.

Haiku XXXVIII

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It's May but so cold:


Swallows scour the North wind


Pretending there's food.
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Rough winds do shake the darling buds of May and starve the swallows too.