In Hope

A rare taste of something convincingly like sunshine and warmth this morning had me looking about me with renewed hope as I strolled to the station. When something smallish and brownish fluttered up from the Traveller's Joy beside the path, my heart leapt, as it looked very like being my first Gatekeeper of the year. However, when it settled on a leaf, I realised the markings were wrong - not nearly enough tawny orange on the wings, not enough in the way of beady little eyes around the margins. No, it was an undersized Meadow Brown - one of the few species to be seen at all regularly over recent weeks, along with gratifying numbers of those dark beauties, the Ringlets. I think conditions have been so harsh this dreadful summer that they're stunting the growth of many of our butterflies. In fact, that might explain why I seem to have seen so few Large Whites, relative to Small Whites - perhaps some of those Smalls are in fact undersized Larges. It's a funny old butterfly year.