NECTAR FRENZY IN THE SUMMER HEAT ( Warning! :D The post is infested with those damn butterflies! )
hive-101587·@borjan·
0.000 HBDNECTAR FRENZY IN THE SUMMER HEAT ( Warning! :D The post is infested with those damn butterflies! )
It was hot on that day, around noon, a few weeks ago, when the following photograph was taken.  This is the male of the Gonepteryx cleopatra. A very beautiful butterfly. And he's feeding on the juicy composite flower of the Knautia arvensis plant. <a href="https://files.peakd.com/file/peakd-hive/borjan/5YCQesCP-P178092320IZHOSHTRENO.jpg"><img src="https://files.peakd.com/file/peakd-hive/borjan/5YCQesCP-P178092320IZHOSHTRENO.jpg"></a> (Enlargeable) I was pretty exhausted, almost completely defeated by the midday sun, and the butterflies were very active, energetic, comfortably flying around and collecting their favorite food, which was very abundant in those days. I saw a nice variety of species. This is the Pyronia tithonus, I think, I'm almost sure about the species. <a href="https://files.peakd.com/file/peakd-hive/borjan/LBwUTonq-P201018520IZHOSHTRENO.jpg"><img src="https://files.peakd.com/file/peakd-hive/borjan/LBwUTonq-P201018520IZHOSHTRENO.jpg"></a> (Enlargeable) This is the lovely Painted lady (Vanessa cardui), also photographed on the same occasion. All these butterflies were attracted by the same plant ...  ... and all this was happening in the very vivid and colorful setting, dominated by the bright yellow of the Spanish broom's (Spartium junceum) flowers ...  ... at the entrance to the old abandoned quarry.  Here is another Gonepteryx cleopatra male, this time enjoying the nectar on a different flower, on some Centaurea plant.  The female of this species lacks the vivid orange on the fore wings and is easily confused with another species, the Gonepteryx rhamni butterfly, which has a slightly more pointed wings.  Spiders were hanging on their orbs above the flowers ...  ... and with all that frenetic butterfly activity around, there were some casualties of course. <a href="https://files.peakd.com/file/peakd-hive/borjan/GF7kXBtA-P201016420IZHOSHTRENO.jpg"><img src="https://files.peakd.com/file/peakd-hive/borjan/GF7kXBtA-P201016420IZHOSHTRENO.jpg"></a> (Enlargeable) This Neoscona adianta spider has caught and enveloped the Painted lady butterfly. In the lower corner, on the left side of the picture, especially if you enlarge this enlargeable thing, you can see another, much smaller spider. I don't know the name of the species, but I saw them regularly hanging around the orbs of larger spiders and feeding on the remains of their meals. <a href="https://files.peakd.com/file/peakd-hive/borjan/BqeV7ugd-P201017420IZHOSHTRENO.jpg"><img src="https://files.peakd.com/file/peakd-hive/borjan/BqeV7ugd-P201017420IZHOSHTRENO.jpg"></a> (Enlargeable) With this sunny, enlargeable shot of the colorful Gonepteryx cleopatra this first chapter of the post ends. On the following photographs ...  ... you'll see more flowers, more feeding, more summer and more butterflies - more of the same, essentially :D but these photographs were taken on different occasions, some of them many years ago.  On this set of pictures, you can see the same butterfly, the small Satyrium ilicis, feeding on the same flower. Through these photographs you can observe how the shades of colors and glitter change with changing of the direction of the light.  Here some lovely blue appeared where the brown stood a moment before.  The situation is slightly different on every shot.  Here you can see another butterfly approaching. These shots were taken in 2011.  Here, on the photographs taken in 2009 you can take a better look at the Painted lady butterfly ...  ... feeding on the Thistle flower.  This is a photograph from the same year. The small diurnal moth Acontia trabealis is also enjoying the rich Thistle flower.  Here you can see some more diurnal moths.  A mating pair of some species of the Zygaenidae family.  Here is another similar moth. I don't know when these shots were taken. I mean don't know the year. The time of the year is clearly the hot and colorful summer.  Back in the summer of 2007 I photographed this Scarce swallowtail (Iphiclides podalirius) on the coastal meadows covered with many thorny plants like this Thistle.  On this photograph, taken on the same occasion, you can see the large butterfly and a small beetle, the pollen eater called Oedemera nobilis.  Here you can see some small blue butterfly, I don't know the exact species, on the photograph from the same year and the same meadow. This butterfly is feeding on another thorny plant, the Eryngium amethystinum.  On this old summer shot from the 2010, you can see another pretty small butterfly, the very common Coenonympha pamphilus, inside the Bindweed flower.  From the same year is also this shot with the very decoratively designed Marbled White (Melanargia galathea) ...  ... and this one ... with the small and lovely Lycaena phlaeas.  In the year 2012, I photographed a relatively rare encounter on these meadows.  The pretty large white butterfly appropriately called the Large White, or in a more scientific manner - the Pieris brassicae. The Small Whites (Pieris rapae) are very common, but this large ones are a different story.  This beautiful Southern white admiral (Limenitis reducta) ...  ... that is feeding on the tiny flowers of the thorny shrub called Paliurus spina-christi, came from the same 2012 folder as the Large White. <a href="https://files.peakd.com/file/peakd-hive/borjan/lF3vL41O-P182048020IZHOSHTRENO.jpg"><img src="https://files.peakd.com/file/peakd-hive/borjan/lF3vL41O-P182048020IZHOSHTRENO.jpg"></a> (Enlargeable) A bit more recent, from the 2015, is this photograph with the Colias croceus butterfly ... and some wild bee buzzing nearby.  This Lampides boeticus was captured on photograph at the end of the summer in 2013. The following two photographs ...  ... are relics from the distant past. They were taken with my first digital camera, some kind of small compact Olympus, in 2001. Here you can see a large & beautiful Black-veined White (Aporia crataegi) hanging from a lovely cluster of flowers ... an on the next one ...  ... a trio of Meadow browns (Maniola jurtina) on the Wild carrot flower. And now ...  ... with a few recent shots, from a few weeks ago ...  Is time to connect the ending with the beginning, in a solid never ending structure, and let the post rotate through this virtual space :D As always here on HIVE, all the photographs are my work.
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