Face to face

Face to face with a small white butterfly feeding on the flower of a wild strawberry. This one stopped just long enough for me to take two photographs. I'm always surprised at just how hairy butterflies are close up.

Gus and I went to Gait Barrows in the afternoon in search of a Duke. We saw something go by that might have been one, but it didn't stop to be examined. It was a little too hot and everything was too flighty, there were numerous brimstones but none were coming near. GB has also become something of a magnet for butterfly enthusiasts, and there were people with cameras lurking everywhere, not quite the solitude I was hoping for.

The lesson is to be early, it's always worked in the past, though today I was too tired to get up at the usual time. Though a wander over the Knott in the morning yielded a good crop of fly orchids in the old pig field.