Continued growth and transformation from green shoot to woody branch.

Frangula Alnus berries ripening on the same plant, photographed 27th July.

In my spot in Essex, in something of a frost pocket, male Meadow Browns must of hatched in the past week. Just a couple evident on 15th June but many on the 22nd. Well behind Blythe Valley Park it seems.

That could be a Cleopatra Butterfly (Gonepteryx cleopatra) The leading edge of the forewing (costa) is barely convex and there looks to be a yellowing inside the wing.

Their charmed lives. I have been following a dozen or so (wild) caterpillars on young Alder Buckthorn planted next to a remote stream and overgrown with Common Comfrey, Nettle, Black Horehound and Water Figwort. I have not found a single chrysalis. Either I cannot find them or they were predated.

Thanks for posting these. Did they pupate on the same plant on which they were feeding? In this picture it looks as though there is an almost completely eaten leaf nearby.

"Hieracium pilosella grows in dense mats, excluding other vegetation."

"If the soil in which mouse-ear hawkweed is growing is infertile, then a dense advancing front of plants will radiate from a bare center."

Hieracium pilosella = Pilosella officinarum

explorer.natureserve.org/Taxon/ELEMEN...

Two days later I find that the rapidly decayed remains are being scavenged. A Blow Fly and a pair of Scorpionflies (Panorpa). A parasite would have kept its host alive.

In retrospect I wish I had investigated further two days ago. What is all that detritus covering leaf and corpse?

Brimstone might be choosy about their choice of larval host. There may be something about that row of Buckthorn that they are avoiding.

Have you found Brimstones there on previous occasions? I have been wondering how they locate their larval host. They found my newly planted Alder Buckthorn saplings both last year and this.