Marbled White butterfly at Daneway Banks

I ventured up the Golden Valley to Daneway Banks, a nature reserve managed by the Gloucestershire Wildlife Trust.  The distance is about six miles and the drive takes you to the delights of a very quiet wooded Cotswold valley.  It is an SSSI, which preserves traditional wild limestone grassland, and is the site of the very rare Large Blue butterfly (which I gather is actually quite small). It was reintroduced from Scandinavia to try to re-establish its presence in Britain.

Apparently the role of myxamatosis in killing rabbits completely destroyed the complex relationships between grass length, yellow ants and the butterfly. I met two elderly gentlemen from Birmingham who were also looking for the Large Blue, and were lifelong lovers of butterflies. They kindly talked to me at length and told me what to look for and said they had seen one earlier in the day. But I had no luck, despite seeing many other beautiful  butterflies and other flying insects. 

Nevertheless the site is a wonderful place to visit with its rich mixture of  flowering meadow plants as well as buzzards flying very low above my head on updraft currents. A green woodpecker squawked as it flew several times between trees on the edge of the surrounding woodland.  I will return quite soon to see if I can spot the Large Blue, but apparently its season is ending early this year and most of them may have gone.

there were lots of the Marbled White to keep me happy however, and I thought that a picture of it feeding on a wild cornflower would make a good picture for today's Flower Friday challenge