The forecast showers for this afternoon didn't turn up, and it turned into a warm a sunny afternoon - that's two in a row now :-)
Given the good weather, I thought I'd take a look over at the Lake area and Scrubby woods, mainly to see if I could find the first Purple Hairstreak Butterflies of the year, which I did, just two, but it's a start, I couldn't get any photo's of them as they were high up in an Oak Tree, but if the weather stays nice I should get some photo's later on. Whilst watching out for Purple hairstreaks, I saw my first Large White, Speckled Wood, and comma butterflies for the month, as well as hearing the continued song of CHIFFCHAFF, BLACKCAP and TURTLE DOVE, those along with a Brown hawker Dragonfly, also my first this year, made for an interesting visit. The Adjacent Lakes were looked over, two MALLARD, a family of MOORHENS, the first
GREY HERON (
54) of the month, and one COOT with a single, nearly fully grown youngster with it were the only occupants today. On the way back out, to visit the Tree Nursery, both COAL TIT and GOLDCREST sang, and a TREECREPER called loudly.
On arriving at the Tree Nursery, I straight away saw the two adult KESTRELS up hunting, but most of the time my head was downwards looking for butterflies, I was looking for my first Small Skipper of the year, and after checking through a few Large Skippers I did find a couple, the 22nd butterfly species this year. The only other Butterflies seen in the nursery were two Red Admirals, and dozens of Meadow Browns. I also made a quick stop at the run off pool at the bottom of the Tree Nursery, hoping for a chaser species, but none were found, just a few Azure and Blue Tailed Damselflies. Walking back homewards I saw a pair of BULLFINCH fly into the Tree Nursery, and the WHITETHROATS were ''churring'' again, 11 BLACK HEADED GULLS were the last notable birds for the afternoon, as they flew over the Greenhouse Complex.
Photo's today are of the Butterflies / Damselflies
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| Speckled Wood |
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| Meadow Brown |
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| Red Admiral |
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| Large Skipper |
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| Small Skipper |
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| Azure Damselfly |
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| Blue Tailed Damselfly (female) |
5 comments:
Hi Warren. Another nice set of pics today, it's good to have a bit of light for a change. No Small Skippers for me yet and no Brown Hawkers either. Did manage to get to NH this morning, will try and post asap but struggling to find time lately.
Two warm sunny afternoons in a row....sounds like you just had your summer Warren, be snowing next!
Lovely flutter and damsel photos Warren. Good to see the clear differences between Large and Small Skipper. I haven't seen a Small yet this year.
The weather was a bit better here this afternoon but I was not able to get out with the camera :-(
Inverts galore!!!! cracking selection of flutters there Warren. Just shows the difference a bit good weather can make!
Super set of pics Warren. The flutters have definitely responded to the better conditions today.
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