Dingy

I'd not previously noticed  this piece of the ongoing rewilding/resistance/revolutionary butterfly conservation that's happening in the Big Field behind Shipley Station, of which I've essayed here before. 

The script is on the steel fence that separates the informally accessible field from the enclosed Network Rail territory that sits behind Platform 4.  Next to it we are also promised: "Brown Argus Here".  As far as I know this is a statement of hope and intent more than of fact, however Brown Argus were recorded a short distance away on a biodiverse post-industrial site in the canal corridor at Briggate before Sustrans and Bradford Council destroyed it. 

At the foot of the fence is an area of ground that's been scraped clear and some nicely translocated Bird's-foot-trefoil that will aid the already established Common Blue colony, at least until Morrisons come and blanket everything in tarmac, brick and concrete. Sorry Morrisons, not even the fact that you're a Bradford firm can forgive you that.

All of which is also something of a commentary on the fact that just a few yards the other side of the railway tracks is an official Butterfly Conservation reserve (open afternoon Saturday June 20th from 1.30pm if you're interested), which while a symbolic success of sorts, is nothing like as significant a butterfly site as this soon to be lost Big Field.

For what it's worth, today's quick walk around the field threw up my first (UK) Small Heath of the year, but that was it, symptomatic of the "June Gap" which can make this time of year reasonably quiet until the Skippers, Ringlets and Meadow Browns emerge in force over the next few weeks.

All of which seems a suitable follow-up to a brief exchange with @Wendles56 on the subject of Edgelands, prompted by her rather delightful sgwarnogs, observed in another corner of Bradford.