Brown study

If you startle a brown butterfly into the air while walking through a grassy field at this time of year it will probably be a Meadow Brown.

As you can see it has an orange splash on each forewing with a little black and white eye-spot.

When it perches, low in the grass stems, the underside of the wing shows more orange and a lighter brown.  If you look very carefully you may be able to make out a tiny black dot in the middle of the wing.

It is one of our commonest butterflies and will even fly on overcast days,

 which is a cheery thing.

By the end of the month it will be joined by Gatekeeper butterflies - more on them later.