pearl-bordered fritillary

We visited the Wyre forest this morning with the hope of seeing some pearl bordered fritillary butterflies, The last time we visited was a beautiful sunny warm day and it seemed that they were everywhere, the weather forecast last night looked favourable, so we ignored the clouds at home and set off fairly early with trusting the forecast and the sun would be shining and we would see loads!
Well the sun was shining, unfortunately there was also a lot of cloud so we only had brief sunny intervals and when the sun went behind the cloud it was actually fairly chilly. We didn't see any butterflies for at least an hour and we were heading back towards the car park when we saw our first butterfly it didn't stop so no firm id but could have been a skipper, may be! less than a minute later a pearl bordered fritillary drifted past us, I eagerly followed with camera poised... how can butterflies just vanish like that?  hey ho at least we had seen one so we now knew they were about!
It must have been a good ten minutes or so later when this one decided to settle close to us, the problem was there was always a blade of grass or two in the way...

....until it briefly landed on a dandelion

bluebells at Aqualate

dandelions and bluebells

I have often sung the praises of dandelions, a much maligned flower and undeservedly so in my opinion, as you can read in a much earlier post on this blog from 2011entitled 'our magnificent dandelion'. Today the dandelions along our lane are again in full flower - and the few bluebells in the verges are also just starting to flower too, not in the masses as they are at Jackson's coppice (see my previous post) but just enough to add a splash of blue and the vibrancy of the two flowers together is quite stunning!

dandelions with ground ivy

Dandelions and celandine

dandelions with bluebells

Jackson's Marsh and Coppice

A morning of Marsh Marigolds, bluebells and birdsong.
Our day started with a walk along the boardwalk around Jackson's Marsh, a Staffordshire Wildlife Trust reserve,  we were greeted by the call of a chiffchaff that teased us for a few minutes before hopping onto a different branch high up in the alders before flying off. the Marsh was full of birdsong, we spotted chiffchaff, nuthatch, goldcrest, coal tit, great tit, blue tit, robin, wren, dunnock, blackbird, jackdaws and buzzard.
Jackson's Marsh

We then went on to Jackson's Coppice, the bluebells are flowering another week and the woodland floor will be covered in bluebells.

 

wood anemone

wood anemone

 

wood anemone

Wood Sorrel 

photography by Angela Smith

you could almost believe it was spring!

A beautiful warm and sunny dog walk, with just a light breeze, which meant I had a good chance of photographing my first butterfly of the year, so I took my camera and yes right on cue - this small tortoiseshell butterfly turned up at just the right moment!

the birds were in full song too, such as this wren - belting it out!!!

such a big noise from such a tiny bird -

and this chaffinch too!

My favourite kind of dog walks!