Butterflies and Bumble Bees

One of our fields gets overgrown at this time of year but it attracts many insects. There is a lot of Knapweed which is very popular with pollinating insects so I spent an hour or so this afternoon in between rain showers taking some pictures.

Knapweed flower with Bumblebee and Hoverfly

There are thousands of Gatekeeper Butterflies around at the moment. Apologies for so many pictures of them. I couldn’t stop taking pictures.

Gatekeeper Butterfly

Gatekeeper Butterfly on Knapweed

Lots of Bumble Bees too but I find identifying them quite hard. Males, Queens and workers are all different and there is quite a lot of variation even in the same species.

Bumblebee on Knapweed. Probably a buff tailed Bumble Bee.

Hoverfly on Knapweed

This was an enormous bumble bee. I think it must be a Red-Tailed bumble bee.

This is the same Red-Tailed bumble bee.

Large White Butterfly

Small Skipper butterfly. These have odd looking wings when they are resting like this.

A pair of Gatekeepers

Another Gatekeeper

Blackberries ripening already

Speckled Wood butterfly. This one looks a little knocked about.