On a walk along the coast in summer keep your eyes out for the bright flickers and flashes of butterflies, moths and other insects.
Some butterfly and moth species will have made the flight across the English Channel and North Sea to settle in suitable habitats close to the coast.
Butterflies
Grayling
A resident butterfly, the grayling's colouring gives it excellent camouflage when it is resting on the ground or on rocks.
When cold the grayling will angle its wings towards the sun to absorb the warm rays. But if too hot, it will sit on a rock with its wings tilted to avoid the sun's rays to lose heat or at least avoid getting warmer.
© Butterfly Conservation / Tom Brereton
Graylings feed on many flowers for their nectar in summer, from the end of June through to mid September.
Where to spot them:
You have a good chance of seeing graylings on good sunny days in late summer:
- walking on the coast paths near Lizard, Cornwall
- on the Mourne Coastal Path, Northern Ireland
- near the Needles on the Isle of Wight, Hampshire
- Great Orme in North Wales, where there is a specific race of grayling which is smaller than the ‘common’ race
Clouded yellow
In contrast to the grayling, the clouded yellow is one of the truly migratory European butterflies and a regular visitor to Britain and Ireland from the continent.
During exceptional summers, the clouded yellow lays eggs which may hatch, pupate and emerge as a new generation later in the summer.
© National Trust / Matthew Oates
Clouded yellows like to be in areas with plenty of nectar, so chalk downland is a good place to look for them. They also feed on clovers and other legumes (nitrogen fixing plants).
Where to spot them:
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Moths
Scarlet tiger moth
Of the many types of moths living in Britain one of the brightest and most beautiful is the scarlet tiger moth which flies in June and July.
This gaudy moth is common in the south and south-west of Britain. In South Wales it can be found living along beaches and undercliffs on the coast.
© Butterfly Conservation / David Green
The larva feeds on common comfrey and hemp agrimony, and in Wales on hound's tongue.
Where to spot them:
- on the dunes at Penmaen and Whiteford on the Gower Peninsula, Swansea
- the Golden Cap estate, Dorset
- on areas near to Boscastle, Cornwall
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Drinker moth
The drinker moth is a common species of moth. It can be seen flying in the late summer, during July and August.
Its larvae feed on coarse grasses like cocksfoot. When ready, a small papery cocoon is spun for the pupa to change into the adult the following year.
© Butterfly Conservation / David Green
The drinker moth is very common in many types of habitat and becomes more coastal further north to Northumberland. It favours tall damp grassland, fens, marshes and boggy areas.
Where to spot them:
- in areas like the Norfolk coast, Yorkshire coast and Northumberland coast
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Fiery clearwing
The fiery clearwing is a very rare and endangered moth easily recognised by the bright orange margins to its forewings. It lives on cliff tops in Kent.
The moths fly in late June and early July and may be found in flight over their food, the dock plant. The larvae ‘mine’ the roots of dock, and emerge as adults in June and July resembling wasps as a means of protection.
Where to spot them:
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Beetles
Rose chafer
The rose chafer is a beautiful iridescent beetle that occurs in a variety of colours. The wing cases are typically bright green, but they may be darker, variegated or golden, and the underside is a coppery colour.
The rose chafer belongs to the same family as dung beetles. Chafer comes from a Middle English word ‘to gnaw’, referring to the beetle's feeding habits.
© Roger Key
The adult beetles fly clumsily about between April and September, and are typically seen in sunny weather.
The adults only live for a few weeks. They feed on leaves, fruits, flowers and the buds of a range of plants including roses (from where they get their name), and are often seen as garden pests.
The larvae feed on plant roots, and spend the winter hibernating in the soil or inside rotting wood, emerging the following year to pupate.
Where to spot them:
- Bolt Head near Salcombe, Devon
- the Lizard, Cornwall
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Oil beetles
Oil beetles are a family of beetles that share a fascinating life cycle. Their larvae are parasites of certain bee species.
The black oil beetle is bluish black with a long swollen abdomen, particularly pronounced in females when they are producing eggs.
© Roger Key
Towards the end of spring, female oil beetles dig burrows in the ground close to colonies of host bees, into which they lay around 1,000 eggs. The eggs usually hatch the following year to coincide with the emergence of the bees.
Oil beetle larvae (known as tringulins) are very active. They climb onto flowers where they wait for a host bee to latch on to, with luck the right type of species, so they are flown to the host’s burrow.
Here the tringulins turn into a grub-like larva, and develop by feeding upon the pollen stores and eggs of the host. The larva pupates and the resulting adult beetle spends the winter inside the host’s burrow before emerging the following spring.
Where to spot them:
- in the west along the coasts of Devon, Dorset and Cornwall
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Common green tiger beetle
Some beetles are voracious predators rather than plant eaters. One of the most common and easily recognisable is the common green tiger beetle, found on heaths and in sandy places.
Its larvae live in a small pit actively waiting for small insects like ants to blindly wander in. Once trapped, the tiger beetle larvae can capture it with their large jaws.
© National Trust
Tiger beetles are very visible with their fast darting runs across open ground.
Where to spot them:
Especially on light sandy soils on heaths.
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Ant lion
With a larvae life cycle very similar to the green tiger beetle, the ant lion is another fierce predator of other insects.
It also builds pits into which insects, especially woodlice, fall and meet their fate. Ant lion larvae, on detecting another insect close to its pit, will start to spray sand in the hope of making the insect fall into the trap. Unusually the ant lion digests it food so well that almost no solid waste is generated, so there is no need for an anus.
The ant lion was only discovered in the early 1990s on the Suffolk coast at Minsmere. It can also be found at Dunwich Heath, Suffolk.
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Bees and flies
Mining bee
Mining bees build small burrows in a bank or open sandy ground near the coast. Large colonies can form, particularly on salt-marshes.
The adult bees are active in late summer from mid-August to October. The mining bee’s principle pollen and nectar sources are the flowers of the sea aster.
Where to spot them:
- North Norfolk coast salt-marshes near Stiffkey and Brancaster
Hornet robber fly
The hornet robber fly though fearsome looking is completely harmless to man. Adults emerge in June and perch on a convenient stick, stone or dung pat to search for their favoured prey, dung beetles.
© National Trust / Peter Brash
Females lay their eggs in dung which hatch and then feed on the larvae of dung beetles. So the fortunes of dung beetles influence the fate of the hornet robber fly.
Where to spot them:
- areas of unimproved grassland (with grazing animals) on the South Devon, Pembrokeshire and Cornish coasts
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