More skippers!

The sun shone finally after a wet and cool week. We popped in the wildlife garden in the afternoon. The knapweed, a favourite feeding plant for the skippers is now flowering in the meadow. Both species were very active, a male Large Skipper fed on the flowers, showing its long tongue.

A male Small Skippers followed a female fluttering behind her, but then appeared to lose interest, quickly losing her and perching, maybe she was already mated? The female settle to feed almost next to him and I just managed to take a photo with both in the frame: the male is in the foreground.

 

 We watched possibly the same female later as she was searching for suitable oviposition sites, which in the case of Small Skippers is Yorkshire Fog grass.  She settled and started a curious dance on the long grass stems, her swollen abdomen curved and everted, its tip touching the stem, and she moved circling around and up like moonwalking. We didn't actually see any eggs (they must be tiny!), but this confirms that the garden has a breeding population.

This gif showis a short sequence of egg laying behaviour:

Perching male Large Skipper

 Skippers are amongst my favourite butterflies. They are inquisitive, fast fliers, and males like to perch prominently in their territory, and then allow close approximation. I took a zoomed shot of this male with the macro option, which effectively blurred the background, and shows off the details of the butterfly, including the dark sex brand on the forewings. The following shot, in contrast, captures its surrounding environment, and illustrates how the tall Red Clover allows the male to obtain a broad view of the little meadow in a local wildlife garden where it lives, and to quickly spot and chase rival males. Golden skippers rest with the forewings held well above the hindwings at an angle, instead of resting the forewings over the edge of the hindwings, both on the same plane as in other butterflies. The meadow, with tall grasses, and dotted with Birds Foot trefoil, red clover and geraniums, is a typical habitat for this species.