I recently discovered Butterfly Conservation Dorset’s Alners Gorse reserve, just twenty minutes from me, but to my shame I didn’t even know it was there. I very much do now. It is a magical place, only a few hectares, but chock full of wildflowers, trees and shrubs, and especially butterflies. You can’t move for them – for a photographer, even an ‘enthusiastic amateur’ like me, it’s like shooting fish in a barrel. It’s a very different kind of photography to birds though – you walk very slowly when you’re among butterflies, as if looking for lost keys, and raise your camera even more slowly, so as not to spook the little critters. I spent longer seeing the few acres of Alners Gorse than I would the whole of, say, RSPB Ham Wall, a place hundreds of times its size. On this warm, sunny July day, I ambled myself into a wonderful, mindful calm, occasionally chatting to the regulars, but mostly just wandering in silent, smiling contemplation of the beauty of small things. Now and then I even forgot I had a camera.
Small Skipper
Ringlet
Purple Hairstreak (female)
Purple Hairstreak (female). The ‘purpleness’ often wears off in older specimens it seems, but this one still has a hint of it on the leading edge of its wing. My first ever Purple Hairstreak!
Common Blue (female). The males are, as their name would suggest, blue. This was the first Common Blue of the year at the reserve apparently.
Shaded Broad-bar moth
Silver Y moth
Snout moth – named for obvious reasons. These little things are only a few millimetres long – I love the challenge of trying to photograph them. They’re the little white moths that fly up from most long grass as you walk through it. Next time I’ll take a macro lens.
The photos above are all mine – I will add some of the place itself when I go next, which I hope will be very soon.
Alastair Swinnerton 