Wolves Wild

This July, large white butterflies have been around in numbers I don’t remember in over 60 years of noticing the garden pests. Here are some on purple flowers: a patch of verbena at the back of Toposcope Hill, a thistle, and purple loosestrife.

Dead nettle, a cultivated variety with variegated leaves and purple flowers.

Tortoiseshell butterfly resting on the ground, warming itself in the morning sun. As it did do, it was gently folding and unfolding its wings.

Teazles at different stages of flowering, a patch growing below Toposcope Hill in Baggeridge Country Park.

Common blue damselflies mating, clasping each other to form a wheel. Here they were resting on a bulrush leaf, probably just about to take off and fly. The female is green, the male blue.

The feathery parachutes for wind dispersal of the seeds form an almost complete sphere on these meadow salsify – also known as jack go to bed at noon, from the habit of the yellow flowers closing by the middle of the day.