Trombidium

A nice morning dog walk over the Downs near Lewes. I saw 12 species of butterfly which is pretty good for the end of August and at one point I counted more than fifty newly emerged Small Heath. My blip however is of a mite infested Meadow Brown. You can see two red blobs on either side of the head, these are Trombidium breei mites. Meadow Browns are particularly susceptible to these mites. Apparently they don't harm the butterfly although I would think this one has an impaired field of vision.