Small Skipper

I walked on Kelling Heath with H this morning after my Sainsbury's delivery. Whilst sunny, it was nice and cool to start with in the wind, but when the wind dropped it felt warm and muggy. Always a lovely walk, particularly this time of year with Mother Nature supplying so many blip opportunities. We both had a Ronaldo's gooseberry ice cream tub at the holiday village, then walked down to have a look at the pond. There were plenty of dragonflies around, but we just missed the steam train passing by a matter of seconds. I've added a collage as an extra of a four spotted chaser dragonfly and a rabbit that we spotted. My main is, I think, a small skipper butterfly. I'd noted that a few blippers were posting skipper photos, but I'd not seen any. I knew that in the field just by the car park there is always some viper's bugloss that skippers seem to adore. And, sure enough, despite a strong wind blowing the flowers around, there were two small skippers enjoying the flowers. This afternoon I watched some tennis and also sat outside later on. I'd lost my footing on the heath (bone dry compacted earth with some loose sand on top) and in my successful effort to stay upright, I hurt my calf muscle on one leg and my hip on the other - so a sit out on my lounger in the sun was just the tonic.