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Wildife in Focus

I enjoy wildlife photography, especially plants.

 

The Tongue Twister Insect

The Red Admiral butterfly was known as the 'Red Admirable' in Victorian times. Try saying that when you are tipsy... it's no wonder the name has shifted to its modern form.

Vanessa atlanta is a butterfly commonly seen across the UK in the summer. In the past most of our Red Admirals migrated here from Europe, with relatively few overwintyering on the south coast, but a warming climate is seeing more and more of them overwintering succesfully in the UK. They are often to be seen feating on nectar-rich plants like Buddleja and on fallen fruit.

If the Red Admiral were an exotic rarity instead of a familar sight, it would surely be apprecaited as one of the most striking and beautiful of butterfly species.

Red Admiral Dorasl view

 

The underside of the Red Admiral is extraordinary:

Red Admiral Underside of wing

 

See how effectively this pattern works as camoflage:

Cryptic Camoflage Copy

Here's Looking At You, Kid.

It's about time I put some more of my wildlife photos on this site.

Not a lot to say about this, it's a hoverfly feasting on hogweed nectar. Despite many of them mimicing wasps and bees, hoverflies are harmless nectar feeders, an example of batesian mimicry, where a harmless freeloader pretends to be a harmful species.  Their larvae are voracious predators on aphids and the like - gardeners should love their hoverflies. They are often to be seen on umbellifers, like hogweed, which group many small flowers to provide a 'landing pad' for pollinating insects.

 

Hoverfly on Hogweed

 

Hoverfly still on hogweed showing