Summer fruits and next year's butterflies

It was a warm sunny day at the end of August when I took a stroll around the Biodiversity Area to see what was there.  Blackberries were ripening on the brambles, providing fruit for birds, wasps and small mammals, such as voles, dormice and harvest mice.

In addition, I found some black aphids clustered along a stem, looking like a good meal for hungry birds.

One of the Silver Birches had a good crop of catkins, to provide seedlings for the future, but also good to sustain birds and voles through the coming winter.

Birch catkins August 2022

The cycle of life was also evident in the hope for next year's butterflies and moths.  One brightly-coloured Cinnabar Moth caterpillar was chewing on Common Ragwort (Senecio jacobaea), before spending the winter as a pupa, to emerge in May to July next year.

Cinnabar moth caterpillar

And finally, I was enthralled to watch a pair of Small Copper butterflies mating in the warm sunshine on a bramble leaf, promising more of these delightful small butterflies for 2023.

Small Copper pair mating

The Small Copper is usually only seen in ones or twos.  We usually have some on the site each year, as the caterpillars feed on Sorrel, which is abundant. They sometimes eat Broad-leaved Dock, too.  Warm, dry conditions are favoured, unlike some of the other butterflies which prefer our damp grassland. So perhaps this unusually dry hot summer has been beneficial to them. Wing Span (male to female): 32-35 mm.