It was all about the Six-spot Burnets at Rhyl today

I'm spending a couple of days with my family in Rhyl and usually I would spend an hour or so down the beach taking photos of any waders around the rock pools but today when I went for my walk the tide was in and there weren't any birds to see

 

But I wasn't disappointed as the warm weather and blue skies meant there were plenty of insects to observe and photograph

 

First up are the butterflies - ids under each one

 

Small Copper

Small Copper

Gatekeepers

Gatekeeper

Grayling

Grayling

Common Blue

Other critters included plenty of these Soldier Beetles

 

 

and as to expected in July plenty of Cinnabar moth caterpillars

 

 But the most prolific little critter seen today were the hundreds - and I mean hundreds - of Six-spot Burnet moths

 

Theses striking looking day flying moths are similar in appearance to the Cinnabar moths but Burnets have just spots on their wings where as Cinnabars have a red strip along with a few spots on their wings

 

 

 

There is also a species called Five-spot Burnet but sometimes the distinguishing spots can merge together which makes a true id near on impossible - it also doesn't help that some Six-spots have very faded almost yellow spots

 

From Splash Point in Rhyl walking along the Prom to Prestatyn Ffrith beach there is a chain link fence along the golf course - and all along that fence I found loads of Six-spot Burnet pupa cases

 

 

but as I looked closer I realised some were actually emerging

 

This is a first for me and I lost all track of time taking loads of photos of this incredible spectacle

 

One such pupa case was attracting a pair of moths who seemed intent on mating - I'm still not 100% sure if this was a male hanging around a newly emerged female or whether these two just happened to want to mate around an un-emerged pupa but either way it made for some fascinating observation

 

 

 

Not quite my usual blog from when I'm in Rhyl but a very different one focusing on something that the majority of people were walking past without realising