Be careful what you wish for!

Summer has arrived with a vengeance! The heat is too much for me. I like blue skies and windless days, but anything over 21 degrees is too hot for me. We decided on making our annual early Summer visit to location  not too far away, in fact on the same Magnesian Limestone as the Don Gorge we walked through on my most recent leg of my One River journey. This site is an SSSI and has a much smaller dry gorge on either side of which are meadows full of wild flowers, including orchids and inhabited by a wonderful range of butterflies. Today's weather was at least perfect for them. We saw Meadow Browns,  Ringlets, Skippers, Blues, Red Admirals, Small Tortoiseshells, Green Fritillaries, Brimstone, and what this site is particularly known for, Marbled Whites in great numbers. The orchids too were at their spectacular best, the most numerous here being Pyramidal Orchids so my blip is a twofer of the  Marbled White and the Pyramidal Orchid. Many of the butterflies were flying around at great speed - I was not, so I only managed a few shots of them. Many of the favourite food-rich flowers had not yet begun to bloom - Scabious and Knapweed in particular, so perhaps another visit in a week or two may be in order.