Richard Bell's nature sketchbook since 1998
Hemlock water-dropwort grows amongst curled dock and nettle alongside the car park at Newmillerdam. A holly blue butterfly rests on the hemlock while hoverflies visit the flowers of creeping buttercup, occasionally chasing each other around. A micro moth resting on a buttercup looks, at first glance, like a tiny fragment of plant debris.
11 a.m.: In a sun trap of a back garden in South Ossett this holly blue is so intent on feeding on a flowering shrub that I’m able to get within macro range with my camera. When I see a blue butterfly the size of my little finger nail I’m never sure whether I’m looking at small blue, common blue or holly blue but, once it settles, the holly blue is the only one that that has bluish white underwings with small dark spots.
The small blue has black spots fringed in white on its pale grey underwing; the common blue has black and orange spots, also fringed in white, on a grey-brown background.