It's peak flowering time for brambles in Teesdale at the moment, which means that it is also peak feeding time for ringlet butterflies Aphantopus hyperantus that like to nectar on the flowers.
When they first emerge their wings are like dark brown velvet, fringed with white hairs, but as the season progresses they lose scales and their colour becomes paler.
This individual with nicely defined wing spots, sunning itself on a bramble leaf today, is a female. Males tend to have just small dark dots as wing markings.
Ringlets have become much more common in the North Pennines over the last thirty years. There is no shortage of their larval food plants - grasses - and the adults seem very tolerant of dull and damp conditions. I've often seen them flying low over vegetation in very overcast conditions and sometimes even in drizzling rain.
They are very casual about where they lay their eggs. Most butterflies stick them on their larval food plants but ringlets just drop them into the grass.
Purely by chance, a few years ago I photographed this one in the act of laying an egg, with the egg in mid-air.
Posts
