Pete's Walks - Duke of Burgundy
Photo taken 19/05/19 at Dunstable Downs, Beds.
I first spotted this small butterfly when I was doing my 'Kensworth and everywhere walk' one time - I then went back to the same location a week or so later and saw seven or eight of them. It is one of the UK's rarest butterflies, and sadly is declining in numbers. It used to be called the Duke of Burgundy Fritillary, because it does indeed look like a small Fritillary, but it actually belongs to a different family of butterflies. It either lives in woodland, where the caterpillars live on Primroses, or else (as with these examples) on chalk grassland where the caterpillars feed on the closely-related Cowslips. I now visit Bison Hill two or three times every Spring to see them.
Photo taken 17/05/20 at Bison Hill, Whipsnade, Beds.
Photo taken 17/05/20 at Bison Hill, Whipsnade, Beds.
Photo taken 27/05/12 at Bison Hill, Whipsnade, Beds.
Photo taken 22/04/11 at Bison Hill, Whipsnade, Beds.
Photo taken 30/04/11 at Whipsnade Downs, Beds.
Photo taken 30/04/11 at Whipsnade Downs, Beds.
Photo taken 30/04/11 at Bison Hill, Whipsnade, Beds.