Marginal

Much consternation has been expressed in recent weeks about the shearing/shaving/scalping of the road verges in Pembrokeshire. Although the county council has undertaken not to cut until July the main through route, the A40/A487 falls under the jurisdiction of the Trunk Road Agency which evidently believes that any roadside vegetation is a hazard, even on the banks. The result has been that swathes of dog daisies and foxgloves have been felled, and they are only the most visible of the wild flowers. 

Waiting at a bus on the outskirts of our county town, Haverfordwest, I noticed that the road margin there had been missed by the cutting team and then a tiny fluttering flake of blue and brown, a female common blue butterfly, caught my eye. Her brown spotted wings were barely visible  but the dusting of cerulean was unmistakable, like a patch of sky blue velvet. You can see her clearly in the  extra along with some of the miniature flowers that fortunately get missed by the cutting machines:   lesser trefoil (her larval food plant), cut-leaved crane'sbill and further off a tiny scarlet pimpernel. Also visible is a fragment of plastic, embedded in the ground for how many hundreds of years?

The common blue is not an endangered species but has suffered a decline in numbers as a result of habitat loss. Unlike the jellyfish in my previous blip human impact on the environment has created conditions in which butterflies and their food plants are marginalised. We love them, we know they are important in the overall scheme of things but we are still a long way from slowing the relentless destruction of the natural world.
You don't know what you've got till it's gone...