Six-spot burnet

I suspect ecologists are never happy with the weather. While the prospect of settled conditions makes it easier to plan our surveys, once the temperatures rise above 23C it can get unpleasant being out all day, and heat exhaustion becomes a real hazard. Today I was surveying a brickpit in Nottinghamshire, and it was certainly very toasty!

I had to survey three areas, but fortunately I was taken to the first area in a land-rover, and was then similarly transported to the second area, which cut out a lot of slogging round. I don't think I've ever seen so many orchids - there must have been over ten thousand in total - and an intriguing mix of forms, which suggested a hybrid swarm, probably between common spotted orchids and heath spotted orchid, with possibly a few southern marsh orchid hybrids thrown in for good measure!

The butterflies and moths were enjoying the warm temperatures - plenty of meadow browns, ringlets and a scatter of small heaths. But the six-spot burnets were the most eye-catching, especially as many of them were pairing up. This day-flying moth has to be one of the jewels of our meadows, and can be found almost anywhere where there is an good population of bird's-foot-trefoil, which is the larval food plant.

Off to bed now. We'll be celebrating Ben's birthday this weekend, so any fieldwork will be confined to very early in the morning!