Butterflies at Park Gate Down, Kent

This sheltered valley was a haven for orchids, butterflies and dragonflies when we visited yesterday.

A dozen or more Pyramidal Orchids were still flowering and hundreds of earlier orchids species had gone to seed

Above, Gloria hoping to see a late flowering Musk Orchid without success.

The butterflies were great; above a Gatekeeper, Pyronia tithonus.

Marbled White butterflies were common this day.

Peacock, Inachis io

6-spot Burnet moths seem to be really abundant this year

I found two Scabious plants next to each other, so that I could compare the Field Scabious, Knautia arvensis (left) with the Small Scabious, Scabiosa columbaria, (right) in the above photo'.  It is the leaves that are the easiest way to tell them apart.