North Cornwall, Late August, 2008

Above….the view towards Portreath from my motor-home window during a week spent working away on the North Cornish coast and, below….the view across Porthtowan beach about a mile or so from the site.Once again, I stayed at the relatively small and very relaxing St Agnes Caravan Club site situated at the foot of St Agnes Beacon, having returned to conduct a broad-spectrum late summer wildlife status exercise….the data from which will be used to compare with the data acquired during the week I spent working from the same site in the spring of 2008 then, the plan will be for me to visit again in the spring of 2010 followed by the summer of 2011 and so on.However, this time around also required a fair amount of night-time work, generally involving much stumbling about in the dark as I tried to guess exactly where I was while everyone else slept soundly in their beds. This was always followed by the inevitable long-distance walks during the daytime (though only after I’d snatched a couple of hours sleep in-between). For the latter, I was usually accompanied by my Wife and Daughter who I’d invited along to give them a bit of a break.Needless to say, I shall upload a few of the more “interesting” photos I took as the week progressed as soon as possible.

In my 1906 copy of Richard South’s “The Butterflies of the British Isles”, the author comments…. “The colour of the male is bright sulphur-yellow with a central orange spot on each wing, with that on the hind wing usually the largest….The female is geenish-yellow and is marked similarly to the male….It is probably this insect to which the name ‘butter-coloured fly’ contracted into ‘Butterfly’ was first given. Anyway, it is the only species to which the name applies so well”