Heath fritillaries

I spent a couple of hours down near Herne Bay the other day and passed the little village of Blean. It reminded me of a happy afternoon earlier this year when I went looking (yet again) for one of our rarest butterflies. I had previously photographed them at the woods in East Blean and so, in mid-June, I set off on the 1.5-hour journey to see what was there. The weather hadn’t been great, but there were sunny spells forecast for a couple of hours and I decided it was worth the risk to get the butterflies while they were still fresh. It was raining when I arrived, so I parked up and waited. And waited. In all, I sat in the car in the pouring rain for 1.5 hours before giving up and making the long drive home.

The weather was much better the following day, but because I had read reports about East Blean becoming very overgrown, I opted to go to West Blean instead. A Facebook group had sightings of up to 100 butterflies and I was keen to try a new location. I parked up as instructed, but for the life of me, I couldn’t find the woods. Asking at a local garage, they directed me to a park a mile or so down the road. The entrance fee was too much and regardless, it just didn’t seem right. Having spent yet another 1.5 hours, I gave up and went to East Blean instead, where I managed to get the shot below.

Doing a bit more homework later that evening, I realised the entrance I was supposed to use was on the far side of a mobile home park. As if I hadn’t done enough driving already, I set out for the third day in a row the following morning. It turned out that the woods were huge and once inside I had to ask for help from a local dog walker. He directed me uphill along a narrow path, that eventually came to the triangular clearing I had been told about. There were certainly lots of little fritillaries, but in the warm sun, they didn’t want to settle. As I wandered around the clearing, I found one of a number of orchids. To this day I have no idea why, but I went over and cleared the grass in front. I hadn’t seen a butterfly land there and with all the greenery around, it seemed a long shot, but perhaps I thought that if it did happen, then at least I could get a clear view.

Which is exactly what I saw on my next circuit. I had to be so very careful getting close enough, but once I had knelt down, I spent the next twenty minutes or so watching not one, but up to three butterflies on and around the flower. Perhaps my favourite shot of all was of just one heath fritillary having fisticuffs with a longhorn beetle that also wanted to sit on the orchid.