For a Fistful of Raindrops

In A Fistful of Dollars, the arrival of a stranger brings with it six-shooter law to the township of San Miguel. Ultimately the dire situation the town found itself in, sandwiched between a feud between two families, is resolved through a gun battle in the parched dusty windblown town square before the 'man with no name' (played by Clint Eastwood in his first role) rides out of town, never to return.

You can feel the heat in this classic and well loved Spaghetti Western. Sweat drips off the foreheads of the main players, the sunlight blindingly intense, the sky is the deepest of blue, dust billows everywhere, energy sapping heat devoid of all rain. 

I was born in 1964. A Fistful of Dollars was released in 1964 and this week the Scottish Environment Protection Agency announced it had had its driest year since 1964. Even in a normally wet Scotland farmers are having to provide water to stock. I don't think there is any connection between these three, or is there?

In this part of Somerset, and across the whole of southern England, this year has been dry, exceptionally dry and warm. I've known dry summers, I've known hot periods. I well remember holidaying in Bournemouth  in 1976 characterised by heat and the scent of heathland fire smoke everywhere. But these were relatively short lived, a number of weeks. With just a few days to go before the end of the metrological summer, the breaking news is that 2025 will undoubtedly be the warmest summer on record due to daily temperatures above the seasonal norm for months. Part of what seems a rising trend, 1976 no longer features in the top 5 list of hot summers. The record-breaking dry year of 1964 with its 79% rainfall now an interesting footnote. 

Despite the wet winter of 2024-2025, Spring arrived abruptly bringing with it drying winds and sunshine. I've been looking at my diary. On the 15th of February we were in Thenford Arboretum in Northamptonshire and 'today's weather was more like mid December - horrible grey, foggy, wet weather'. There seemed to be a lot of cloudy dark days before I then wrote in my diary on February 28th 'Weather has settled in to a dry sunny spell at last'. The following day I wrote 'what a fabulous and beautiful day - not a breath of wind, the sun had heat to it'. I remember the last few weeks at work before I retired on the 19th of March were wonderfully sunny, even warm. Quickly however by mid April I recall being worried about the dry conditions while walking on the Quantock Hills. Again in my diary I wrote on the 11th of April, 'everything is tinder dry on the Quantocks - the soil is either baked solid or blowing away in the quite gentle breeze - I notice farms are supplying water to sheep up here'. But we assumed the rain would come. 

Yet four months later we've had hardly any rain. In Somerset just 1% of the average monthly rainfall for July. Over the summer around a third of the average expected rainfall has fallen. What has fallen, sporadically in hefty showers, evaporated quickly in the warm sunshine. As I write this on the 28th of August many trees and shrubs are showing serious signs of stress, branches being shed, leaves dropping quickly with the landscape looking more October golden than late summer. It won't be until next summer that we'll see the full effect of this dry season on tree health but looking now it's not good to witness and I sadly predict many trees will not survive.

A walk we did over the recent August Bank Holiday weekend has highlighted, and provided the impetus to write a few words, how significant this dry spell has become. If you will an aide-mémoire to this remarkable year before all too soon the autumnal rains will return, or at least we sincerely hope so.

This walk began in the nearby Somerset village of Winscombe, with a plan to walk to the hamlet of Winterhead and return. All too soon as we left Winscombe the first field was the colour of bleached champagne. Underfoot the soil unyielding, it felt like walking on concrete.  

After a few fields the walk follows a myriad of lanes up towards Sidcot Hill. What struck me was the number of fallen leaves and how, as in this image below, the beech tree leaves are turning orange. I had to remind myself this was August 23rd, not October 23rd.

 

 

Worse was to come. We left the lanes and entered the countryside proper, firstly horse paddocks, which seemed to have virtually no grass left in them. Usually in dry periods the grass yellows but the root systems lie dormant waiting for the the next wet spell. These fields though were showing extensive areas of dusty dirt. What has happened to the grass, have the roots died too? I looked across the fields. Yes trees and hedges were retaining colour but the landscape looks tired, a beige hue of exhaustion, it has looked like this for a long time.

Beyond the paddocks we headed up onto Sidcot Hill on the way to joining the West Mendip Way. In this heat, which has defined the summer of 2025, it was a long slog up onto the hill. The views up here are astonishing, across to Wales, but it was how dry the fields looked that caught my attention. These fields still contained sheep, sheltering in the shadow of a hedge, but fields with little grass growing, though plenty of dock plants or thistles surviving due to their long tap roots.

We eventually joined the West Mendip Way where by chance we had a long chat to the farmer here, Mark Heal. The track this medium-long distance path follows is usually muddy even in summer. As we chatted by the gate Mark confirmed many of the issues I'd already heard about affecting farming elsewhere. He told us that he has now used up the last of his winter feed as he has been supplementary feeding his organic beef and sheep all summer long. Lambing during the warm weather in April, he added, was something of a treat, but with no rain of note since then all his stock has needed to be fed, when they should of course be feeding naturally on the summer grazing. Economically this is disastrous. Worse still, he continued, every farmer he knows is in the same position and if replacement winter feed can be found it is both scarce and very expensive, a situation which can only be made worse by the poor harvest this year, yields are significantly down with hay and silage crops almost non existent. There will be a fodder shortage this coming winter. For someone who is struggling to keep his animals alive and healthy Mark seemed quite optimistic about the future, as long as it rains that is.

I watched Mark drive off up the dusty track, on his way to check his South Devon Black cattle we'd seen earlier. I was touched by his optimism as we headed off in the opposite direction across what should have been a muddy ford, which today simply featured the well preserved baked hard mountain bike tyre tracks from a previous season.

He's right, we need to be optimistic to the changes in Britain's weather. My own take is that with Climate Change Britain is becoming much more continental in its weather patterns, meaning prolonged spells of the same conditions rather than the hotchpotch of weather changing daily we've all considered the norm for a century or more. Personally I have enjoyed weeks of predictable dry days this summer but I know many, my wife included, have struggled with the prolonged heat day in, day out, dominated by four heatwaves of exceptional temperatures. 

Wildlife has had mixed fortunes too. Dry soils mean earthworms and soil invertebrates have buried down deep, out of the reach of birds, hedgehogs and other animals who rely on these for survival. Slugs and snails have found hidden corners and gone into what is called Aestivation, a form or dormancy that allows them to tick over their metabolism before the rain returns. Our swifts departed about two weeks early, partly a sign of a successful and early season, they arrived a week early. Bats around the house have been very active however due to the abundant insect life which has bucked some of the negative trend with second broods of butterflies doing well in some species for example. Earlier in the summer there was a ladybird population explosion, short lived as the aphid population was supressed. I've seen more harvestmen in the garden than for years.

Now though it has gone on long enough. As I write this  unsettled weather brought to us by ex-hurricane Erin is trying to make inroads but it is not really producing what we need. Yes it is a little cooler, a little more cloud in the sky but the rain of yesterday was in the form of short lived showers and as has been the case all year, rain evaporated in an hour or so leaving the landscape dry once more. What we need is a few weeks of steady medium intensity rain, not heavy downpours, to begin the water cycle again.

We eventually finished our walk last weekend taking in the views and the scenery and finishing at Winscombe Cricket Club where for about an hour we watched Wedmore 2nds playing Winscombe 2nds on a very dry pitch - perfect weather for cricket while watching the wind ruffle the piles of fallen leaves beside us.

I don't think I'll forget this year for a long while. The rain will of course return one day, and, if my predictions are accurate for a continental climate, it will probably rain every day for weeks non stop, if not for months. Then, possibly following the arrival of a stranger riding ahead of a weather front, I'll look back and say, was the hot dry summer of 2025 actually real?

In Pursuit of Miss Austen

To reinterpret, and devastatingly mangle, one of the greatest lines in English literature - "It is a truth universally acknowledged that Wessex_Reiver in possession of a good day off, must be in want of a visit to Hungerford". As so it was last Sunday when I found myself in that lovely Berkshire town surrounded by people dressed in Regency costumes. I, it has to be made known, was not similarly attired.

A week earlier I had found myself idly scrolling through social media. Time occasionally hangs heavy on the newly retired, thus with the devil making idle hands do work, the temptation to regularly check emails, Instagram or Facebook remains all too Luciferian. However while doing so I stumbled across an advertised event namely a Regency Canal Cruise to Kintbury. I read on. We'd join a group for a leisurely cruise down the Kennet & Avon canal to meet the author of Godmersham Park and Miss Austen, Gill Hornby, at her home, inclusive of a cream tea, a snip at £35 each.

Aside from the Regency era being of interest, strictly speaking I'm interested in 1750-1850, I had very much enjoyed the Miss Austen series on television earlier in the year. I almost booked this cruise there and then but something niggled in me, was this a mandatory costumed event? It is a costume I lack. Contacting the organiser I'd heard nothing until two days before the cruise, it transpired he had replied earlier but that had lain in his draft email. James's reply confirmed there were still a couple of places and after a flurry of emails over Friday afternoon we were booked on the cruise. It would turn out to be a long day, unforgettable though.

Our coffee and cake companions - image from James

The owner of the Tutti Pole cafe (in blue) and James. Image from the Tutti Pole.

I caught up with the thirty people on the cruise at the Tutti Pole cafe in Hungerford. Despite not knowing anyone, or indeed not being dressed for the occasion, Mrs Wessex Reiver and I were welcomed with open arms, or should that be open bonnets? Not everyone was in period clothing which calmed my fears immediately. Those who were looked fantastic. Mainly women it has to be said but the four men looked striking. It seemed most of the people knew each other from Regency dancing events which, as I was to discover, are a big thing these days.  Introductory coffee and cake over we had an hour free before meeting by the Rose of Hungerford canal boat for a picnic.

It was fairly surreal to be sitting with so many people in period costume and then looking around at the trappings of the 21st Century, not least mobile phones held in hidden pockets in their muslin dresses. But they were a lovely set of new friends, very interested in how we'd arrived at this event so late, many had booked it weeks ago. Picnic over we were asked to board the boat for the two hour cruise to Kintbury.

I got to know the Kennet & Avon canal reasonably well a few years ago specifically around the Crofton section which was only a short walk from Mrs Wessex Reiver's then home. It is a lovely part of the world and it was lovely to come back to explore it. This time on the canal itself as in all the years walking the towpath we'd never been on a boat.

After three locks and what seemed to take no time at all, Gill's home, the Old Rectory, hovered into view on the southern bank, where we could see Gill waving to us from her garden gate. We'd made good time. Now for the main part of the day. Which did not disappoint.

Gill could not have been more hospitable, talked through what it meant to be living here in the grounds Jane and Cassandra Austen knew - though not the house. The rectory they knew was demolished and replaced with the current one in 1860. Having moved here Gill's interest in Jane Austen had increased she told us, and she kindly let us see a painting of the house as it would have been when the Austen sisters visited. This painting and another which I saw later were found in the church adjacent to the garden only recently and had been restored.

After more information and a lengthy questions and answer session Gill kindly agreed to sign books for those who had them and pose for photographs in her garden. This included me who having bought her latest Austen novel - The Elopement - only in the morning, asked her to sign and date it, which she did. A permanent reminder of meeting her, exploring her garden and a wonderful day, further captured with a group image of the costumed attendees.

We were not finished just yet. A very short walk brought us to St. Mary's church where a group of volunteers explained more about the church, told us about the Rev. Fowle and the village of Kintbury during the Austens' time. We could have spent longer at Kintbury but all too soon the need to return forced us to head back to the canal and a long anticipated cream tea.

image from James

All too soon we returned to modern life, arriving back at Hungerford just before 8pm. What a wonderful day. It gave me so much to think about: meeting new (and friendly) people who had such a wonderfully open and positive outlook on their passion, also being back in that area, which for Mrs Wessex Reiver is home, and idly wondering whether I could ever wear a frock coat and formal hat in public. It intrigued me as in all the years I've read around Regency England I've never thought of costumed re-enactment. I was to discover there are groups all over England, not just dancing but Napoleonic battle groups, parades, costumed presence at shows and special events, in fact it seems,

"It is a truth universally acknowledged that a single man in possession of a good costume, must be in want of a dancing partner".

Lyscombe Nature Reserve : Embryo Project Idea

 "I think we should return to the car, that looks seriously wet"

Those words passed my lips less than a minute after leaving the car. We, that is Mrs Wessex Reiver and myself, had travelled down to visit a Dorset Wildlife Trust site which had been newly added to its portfolio, Lyscombe, around ten miles north east of Dorchester.

May 2025 : The Chapel

I first visited this site in May on a very hot and surprisingly windy day. On that occasion I had left my OS map at home and naively relied on the satellite navigation on my phone. Betty, as I call the disconnected voice who normally aides my wanderings so beautifully, fell silent on that day when the mobile connection helpfully disconnected about five miles out. Despite being in Southern England this is a remote location, and after a number of fruitless wanderings and about turns along narrow lanes near the hamlet of Plush, lanes admittedly offering breath-taking views over huge fields in this rolling chalk and flint landscape, I finally found the small car-park and set off in blistering heat along what it turned out was the wrong track. Actually it was the right track but not for the direction I wished to walk up to the ridge of the horse-shoe of Lyscombe Hill. That first walk found me descending into the valley floor (Lyscombe Bottom) and exploring the ancient chapel there. It felt remote, a silent untouched landscape, one I instantly fell in love with. I was less enamoured by the searing heat and I decided to return and explore the 'horse shoe bowl' when the weather was less intense. 

An enormous field at the start of the walk

It has been a hot and dry year so far, the driest spring for a century or more, drought restrictions littering England, soil so dry the cracks are large enough to push a boiled egg into, if that was ever an meteorological option. The landscape has looked parched and weary for weeks. Imagine then our surprise at the squally rain barreling in from the west to greet our arrival. Welcome for the countryside yes, but a shock to the system now acclimatised to dry weather as the norm.  It was much too warm for waterproofs. Scuttling back to the car we sat watching the landscape disappear behind an opaque wash of the rainfall's brushstroke. It will just be a high temperature shower, it will pass quickly. Half an hour later we set off once more. This time up the correct track and with my OS map.

The footpath we missed

A enormous field on our left offered fantastic unobscured views over to Hardy's Monument way distant on the horizon. The farmer was urgently bringing in baled straw before more rain fell. With that rain the landscape was cooled, subdued, lank, and with harvest well under way it felt more autumnal than July. 

Fifteen minutes steady uphill plodding brought us to what would be our defined mistake. 

On the OS map the footpath is shown gently curving past a building. On the ground the farm track split, left through a disused piggery, right toward what looked (through my binoculars) like a locked gate. We went left, through opened gates and traversed the side of the deserted piggery and joined a meters wide conservation margin alongside a field of beans. This conservation strip was very wet after the rain but alive with butterflies, mostly meadow brown and 'whites'. There was a footpath of sorts, but to be honest just the faintest hint of passing feet through the long grass. The views were stunning but something did not feel right. Maybe it is just because this a new reserve, there was no one around, it is an empty remote spot.  Doggedly we plodded on.

The wide field margin on the wrong path

The rain returned when we'd almost reached the top of the hill, luckily we were by some trees allowing us modest shelter. To our left the views were stunning across rolling farmland. To our right the horseshoe of Lyscombe curved away like a scimitar. Between Lyscombe and us sat proud as punch a brand new metal mesh fence complete with barbed wire on top. The rain eased, but something did not feel right. Doggedly we plodded on. 

I could see where I thought we should be on the OS map, but this small woodland was in the wrong place. Let me rephrase that, the woodland knew exactly where it was, I didn't. Reaching another barbed wire fence blocking our route I knew somewhere, somehow, on the thirty minute trudge up the hill we'd missed a footpath leading off that long farm track. I don't think we were the first visitors to have made that error either as just along the barbed wire fence hands unseen had cut the middle two strands of barbed wire and bent them back. We scrambled through, there was a footpath sign but I knew we were on the wrong path. 

Nothing for it, we retraced our steps back down the hill for ten minutes to the aforementioned metal mesh fence by the wood. Could we climb over it? Neither of us are good at climbing fences and while that thought came into my head a couple walked by on the opposite side, the only people we saw that day. 

Explaining our predicament the lady said "Yes, we are on the footpath up to the view point - there is a footpath by the piggery, it veers off to the right next to a padlocked gate". We'd missed it, I'd seen the locked gate so we walked on via the left-hand track. To add to our despair she added "there used to be a gate where you are standing before this metal mesh fence was put up" before adding cheerily, but with a hint of why are they over there? "there's a lovely bench up the hill if you can ever get back over onto this footpath".

We thanked them and left them to their leisurely walk back downhill to presumably a warm drink and cake in the car. Dejected we took walked downhill on the opposite, the wrong, side of the fence. Moisture from the wet grass began invading our boots, Mrs Wessex Reiver hobbling due to a previous injury (I'd stood on her foot as we'd scrambled through the barbed wire fence), the metal mesh fence, happily excluding us from our destination, our constant companion. Tensions were high, enthusiasm low.

However half way down the hill as my dejection mounted, I noticed a gate on the other side of a hedge. It was open. Miraculously the mesh fence had also ended. Could we get through the hedge maybe? Yes, a bit of a squeeze but we were through. Our spirits lifted, finally after nearly an hour we were on the right footpath.

The correct footpath up the hill

And what a difference. Much as we'd enjoyed the bean field this was more what I'd thought the walk would offer us, up a grassy ridge, trees, wildlife and far reaching views down into the valley below. We were now on our own, almost. There were butterflies everywhere, mostly meadow brown, hundreds of them, a few gatekeeper, speckled wood and large white, unidentified day flying moths too. Dragonflies zoomed erratically overhead and at our feet the grass shimmered with the explosive movement of crickets and grasshoppers jumping hither and yon. Not much birdlife other than a jay letting us know of its disapproval, but it is July, the silent season. That did not matter, we were in heaven.

Not quite there yet....

... but what a view.

We'd reached (almost) the top of the ridge, the OS map showing a nearby trig point of 244 meters, around 800 feet in old money. New metal access gates delineated a meeting of footpaths, the fingerpost showing Thorncombe, Folly, Higher Melcombe. I wandered through and looked at the view north towards the Blackmoor Vale, an area I know so well. In the mid distance the evocatively named Ball Hill, did they play cricket on that slope I wondered? To my right Nettlecombe Tout itself hiding from sight a landmark known as Dorset Gap. We'd made it, well almost. Another ten minutes walk was required before the now infamous bench loomed out the tall grass like a monument to the weary traveller. And what a wonderful bench offering a stunning view looking south across Lyscombe Bottom and on to the Dorset coastline and Purbeck, well worth the hour and a half walking to get here. We sat here for fifteen minutes in total natural silence. What a place.

We made it...

Purchased in 2024 Lyscombe is a new reserve for the Dorset Wildlife Trust and at 335 hectares one of the largest purchases it has ever made. But I'm so glad they did (and erected the bench). Wildlife wise it is already wonderful but much more can be done. Dorset Wildlife Trust are doing an exceptional thing, by doing almost nothing. Of course management is happening. By reducing grazing and managing the reserve primarily for wildlife slowly the farmed landscape will become a natural habitat for many more species. Current management thinking is to do nothing too dramatic just give the wildlife a chance to return under its own steam now the pressure of farming for profit is released. And I applaud that soft touch approach, reading later that barn owls have already returned on their own wing as it were. 

It's given me an idea too. I've been a member of the DWT for many years but mainly (due to work commitments) I've only visited a handful of their 42 nature reserves and 4 wildlife centres. Now I am retired, time hangs on me like an eager puppy wanting to be outside again. This visit, and while walking for two and a half hours and around five miles in total, gave me time to think about a new project. Over the next few years could I visit all 42 reserves and 4 wildlife centres? I'll not set a timescale, mainly as Mrs Wessex Reiver has her own hatching plans, which I'm reliably informed I'm included in, walking long distance routes. Maybe then I'll count this visit to Lyscombe as the first and at the moment half finished of these 42 visits. It is a big reserve and I've areas yet to explore, so I will definitely return.

Though maybe a refresher in map reading would be advisable first.

Silence on the hills

Unusually I am writing this while sitting having my lunch looking at this view. Mostly I would note something of interest while out, then when home write it up. 

The silence however is noticeable. 

I'm on the Quantock Hills, only three weeks since my last visit. Then at the beginning of May the birdsong was astonishing. Everywhere the orchestra of skylark, stonechat, linnet, wren and meadow pipit provided the avian-symphony. A host of solo artists, pied flycatcher, willow warbler, cuckoo, raven, song thrush and so on, added to the performance. It was incredible. 

Today I've only heard meadow pipit, stonechat and a single swift. No skylark, no whitethroat, no Dartford warbler, even the cuckoo is a distant faint half-call somewhere over the valley. There is plenty of other wildlife to see but the difference those three weeks have made is quite noticeable.

Of course the reason is, I sincerely hope, that territories have been decided, birds paired up and eggs are in the nest or chicks hatched with parents run ragged feeding them. There's no real need to sing loudly if the home is happy and content. 

This exceptionally dry spring will have both brought forward breeding and shortened the breeding phase. It's only a hope that species reliant on insects for their growing chicks find enough of a supply in this dry weather. We will find out in due course when the surveys are collated nationwide.

There's plenty to see and do often course. Day flying moths are plentiful, green hairstreak too. This year is also I think the small heath year, they're everywhere. In some ways the silence in the hills as I write this is a joyous experience, a balm to the extraordinary racket humanity unleashes on the environment, such as the aircraft now passing over at a great height. As long as that is all it is, a temporary cessation of birdsong during breeding I'll sleep well tonight.

Speaking of which I'd best be on my way, a downhill three miles back to the car. The silence will no doubt accompany me. Temporarily I hope.

No Blues, But Plenty Two's

It was on a warm, indeed very warm May Day when I found myself wandering a precipitous hillside in north Dorset. This spring has been most interesting weather wise. Following an unexceptional if mild winter, in southern England at least, we have had a long spell of dry weather, which recently moved up a gear and became quite warm. Anecdotally the average emergent signs of spring are showing around a week ahead. The house martins arrived early April, along with willow warbler, days later I had my first cuckoo and pied flycatcher and I heard my first swift over the house on April 29th  - usually they arrive around the 5th of May. And so, despite it only being May 1st I had already noticed reports of mid-May emerging butterflies on the wing. I got into the car.

An hour and a half after leaving home I arrived at my chosen site near Shaftesbury. It was 10.30am and 19oC on the car thermometer. During the drive over I mulled over the two butterfly species I especially wished to see, marsh fritillary (Euphydryas aurinia) and Glanville fritillary (Melitaea cinxia). Having been to this site before I knew where to look, but knowing where to look is a different proposition to actually finding what I'd be looking for. However I needn't have worried. The walk down the track immediately provided lepidopteran interest, accompanied by an incessant skylark song soundscape.

There were a number of brimstone pairs on the wing, close bonding flights with the male following the female as close as could be. I noticed at least half a dozen during my three hours on the hill. Small heath were everywhere, and in unexpected places. Even along the track dingy and less numerous grizzled skipper were patrolling along with spotted wood and small white flitting in and out of the hedge line, though only one red admiral today. I'd only walked a couple of hundred metres along the track, but now I needed to get onto the chalk hill proper.

Emerging through the hedge the view which always takes my breath away awaited me. Here on the bottom of the slope is a small, but functioning marsh fritillary population. I had the hill to myself other than the skylark song, now joined by a blackcap. 

A cinnabar was a nice find however it was while unsuccessfully trying to take a photograph of a small heath that a marsh fritillary flew slowly by. By flying what I really mean is wafting by, wings horizontal as they glide and flap low over the hill. I find this mesmerising. They are simply patrolling their territory, seeing off any intruders (small heath were given a serious telling off), but somehow that slow lazy flight reminds me of a jazz performer, super cool, unflustered and captivating, but like the words within a jazz lyric, the marsh fritillary means business. As I made my way along the slope a number of fights developed both with other marsh fritillary and other intruders. Spiralling up the pair, sometimes a trio, would twist and turn in rapid flight until it was over when the jazzlike victor would return to his super cool glide and flap quartering of the chalk grassland accompanied by the blackcap backing vocals. I was intruding.

It was getting very warm now so I decided to sit for a while at an area I'd found successful in previous years. This area looks no different to other parts of the hill, a few stunted hawthorn and a sizeable sheltered grassy area, but it is where marsh fritillary have, in the past, stopped and positioned themselves on a prominent plant. As they did on cue.

On this visit plantain and birds-foot trefoil seemed to be the preferred perching plant. I'd not been sitting for long when they appeared and offered a perfect pose for a few images. I don't own one of those huge lenses everyone seems to carry these days. When I'm out I travel light, water, a sandwich, binoculars and my trusty Canon SX50 bridge camera with a very good x 100 optical lens. At ten years old, like me, it is getting on now but it still produces the images I need. Binoculars are also a must while butterfly watching. Putting my camera away I watched the antics of the marsh fritillary through the power of a 12 x 42. So much more can be seen through binoculars, allowing a really in-depth visualisation of the butterfly and it's behaviour. Being this exposed on a chalk hillside however was warming me up a little too well. Time to move, back along the slope to the track where the Glanville awaited I hoped.

I just stumbled down onto the track (it is steep coming down the rickety steps) when I noticed  this pristine newly emerged marsh fritillary. So motionless was it that I thought it had died. The faintest flicker of its wings confirmed all was well. Clinging to the leaf, pumping its wings with blood it allowed me to really focus on the underwing. It all made me think, why so intricate a pattern, which while variable is unique to each species? Underwings are works of art, the combination of light and dark, spots and lines a clever use of the lepidopteran palette to attract a mate.

Interestingly while this marsh fritillary was on the bankside of the track, where the Glanville fritillary are, on the hill earlier I'd noticed a couple of Glanville's floating about. There is a tall raggedy hedge between these two areas, butterfly passage between this boundary is occurring, though the Glanville has somewhat exacting needs.

Initially I didn't see any Glanville's on the wing (actually they were a couple at the base of the hedge). I did however notice a copulating pair. I've never seen this before, not least as Glanville's are rare and not really meant to be here, being an un-licenced introduction it is believed around ten years ago. The most recent Butterfly Conservation report, 2024, states 'the introduced colony appears to be flourishing with several seen including a pair copulating'. Well in 2025 they're definitely copulating. 

Male and female Glanville look the same, however from my own observation the male is subtly 'sharper'. By that I mean the colour is a little brighter. boundary lines a little darker. Thus, if I'm correct, in these images the male is on the right. And of course there's another give away....

Settling down I spent some quality time with this pair. They were reasonably active, circling this hawthorn sapling, slowly it has to be said. Copulation wasn't continuous either. They'd separate and reorganise position before starting again, the male following the female nearly always in a clockwise direction. This pair had already been in embrace when I first saw them and for the next fifteen minutes or so they continued allowing me to really watch what was happening and take a few, well rather a lot of images.

Female left, male right

Male above

Male above

Female with wings open

Suddenly it was all over. One final embrace and then the female dropped to the ground, followed a few seconds later by the male. Which was when the fascinating behaviour occurred. The female clumsily wandered through the vegetation, followed a hairs breadth away by the male. As I watched the female came up to ribwort plantain and (I think, as she was partly obscured) began egg laying with the male watching on. This activity was on a very steep slope and I didn't want to disturb them, or damage the habitat by scrambling up to be closer, I was watching as close as I dared. Maybe I should have checked the underside of the leaf later for confirmation of egg laying, but I didn't as I'm one who prefers to stand back a little to let nature do it's thing unmolested. It is also why I find it frustrating when people wander through habitats, flattening the vegetation, in order to get that perfect image. The needs of the species we are observing should always come first.

Given though this pair were mating, then presumably egg laying on their host plant, ribwort plantain, I can give a good guess as to the outcome. This population of Glanville fritillaries in Dorset may be an un-licenced release, but it seems they're very much flourishing and on this precipitous bankside by a track, with plantains everywhere the future looks bright.

I met a trio of butterfly watchers coming down the track as I headed back to the car. They were interested to know if I'd seen any 'blues' today. They made me think, no not a single blue butterfly. This site is host to holly, small, common and Adonis blue. Despite the warm spring then it is still a little too early for the blues, but the twos are most definitely out in force.