When I first saw this Large Skipper butterfly, I thought that it had encountered a really small fly that had somehow attached itself to the butterfly's proboscis. It was only when I got the photos up on a large screen that I could see that something - maybe the stamen of a flower - had got stuck on the proboscis. Though the butterfly was clearly in some sort of discomfort - it was trying to dislodge the object with its fore-legs and also tried wiping it on the edge of a leaf - it was able to coil its proboscis and there is no reason to think that the butterfly couldn't feed normally, or even go on to produce the next generation. An odd sight though.
I have since found out through UK Safari (www.uksafari.com), an excellent resource for identification and information, that the object on the proboscis was the pollen sac from an orchid.
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| Large Skipper - Ochlodes venata |
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| A closer view showing what looks like a blob of nectar as glue |
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