Marsh fritillary

Wow! This butterfly was extinct in Cumbria, the remaining Cumbrian butterflies were taken into captivity in a last effort to conserve them, but the only ones that survived were those crossed with Scottish individuals. These were raised in a captive breeding programme for several years to build up numbers before being reintroduced to a few selected sites in West Cumbria. These are doing reasonably well but still very small numbers.
However, today one of Robs butterfly colleagues took us to a site near to where we regularly walk and amazingly, there they were! He had known about them last year and it is known that they were introduced by a local naturalist, but not where he collected those larvae from, which is a pity. It is in fact illegal to move this extremely rare insect without a license but as they seem to be thriving I don’t think we are too worried!
But even better than that, we then crossed the road to investigate an area where we regularly walk with Pepper and have seen the Devils bit scabious that is the larval food plant and lo and behold more marsh fritillaries!! We don’t usually walk here in the summer as we are too busy elsewhere but I think we may be returning here soon!i