Comma

My post-dentist therapy, as usual, involved crossing the road to visit the informal urban meadow that lies between Shipley Station and Bradford Beck.

I was rewarded by what for me was a rare sighting of a Brimstone butterfly, the first I've seen in a few years and only the third that I've seen in Baildon/Shipley in the six or seven years that I've been paying attention. My three sightings have all been with ten yards of the railway line, so I'm guessing that serves as useful corridor for their movement. I pursued it down the path for a little while, I didn't catch up for a photo, so we'll have to make do with this Comma instead. There were a few Small Tortoiseshell and a single Peacock about too. These are the classic four early spring butterflies, so it was nice to see them all on the same day and in the same spot.

On another day I might have shared the Bee Fly (extra) that I spotted later in the afternoon in the community garden, it's unusually long proboscis heavily dusted with pollen.

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Butterfly Journal 2017

4. 03/04/17: Brimstone, "Big Field," Shipley (VC63)