Butterflies

Another gentle outing took us to Alderman Kneeshaw Playing Fields. It is a council playing field on the Eastern edge of Hull. Its Eastern edge is on the boundary. It appears to be fairly well kept, but not well used. There used to be a running track, but the surface is not maintained. There are big spaces for football pitches and there are goal posts, but no lines to mark the pitch - it is outside the season so maybe they will be marked later in the year. There were a couple of well kept bowling greens, one was in use, but there were other spaces that looked like disused greens.

Around the edge of the space is an embankment with wooded sides. We walked around the embankment and it turned into a lovely place. There were warblers singing from the trees, wild flowers at every turn and butterflies a-plenty. We saw red admirals, a coma, our first painted lady of the season, green-veined white, gatekeepers, small whites, ringlets and small tortoise-shells. I only had my compact camera, so photos were awkward.

The rest of the playing fields seemed quite tame after that stroll. The wildlife is not keen on big areas of mown grass. I'm glad the wilder bit is out of reach of the mowers.