A Look at the Heath!

I am very lucky to live all of 5 minutes away from East Blean Woods in East Kent, the home of the nationally rare Heath Fritillary butterfly, my namesake of the butterfly world. I often call in before and after work in June to see and photograph this species in its adult form. One of my favorite sights during the year is watching this species in good numbers as it flies in the clearings in the woods, sometimes the floor can be alive with them. However this year after buying a macro lens I decided to visit earlier in the year to see if I could find any larvae to photograph. I had read that on sunny days that they liked to sun themselves so in early April I arrived at East Blean Woods and looked for me needle in a haystack. After a while, an hour or so of looking I eventually found a few very small individuals measuring only about 7mm and set about photographing them. It was indeed a challenge and trying to get the subject perpendicular to the camera was not easy but I ended up with a few pleasing efforts. I didn't really return until the butterflies were flying and missed a few opportunities to photograph the larvae when they were bigger so next year that will have to be on my growing list of photos to take. 

Heath Fritillary Larvae 

Heath Fritillary