a week of Butterflies
The weather was warm to hot this week so again I concentrated on insects.
Admittedly a couple of days were mostly dragonfly searching but in the absence of any particularly interesting sightings I will stick with butterflies.
A comma from last week was the first of an obvious hatch
On Wednesday my car was booked in for a service in a North Bristol garage, so I took the opportunity to avail myself of the offered courtesy car and spend a morning in Lower Woods reserve near Badminton.
The shade was very welcome as the mercury hit 29 degrees C by lunchtime. Such heat meant that butterflies were very active and thus hard to snap but perseverance paid off with the two species I most wanted to see
First a couple of White Admirals were present, though they stayed a bit high even when perched
Next were Silver-washed Fritillaries. I was despairing of ever seeing one land when I met a fellow naturalist called Rod Holbrook whose work I had seen on twitter. He had only gone a few yards further down the track before he called me over to point out an individual that kept stopping briefly in a sunny patch
On a couple of other occasions, earlier in the week I had seen Marbled Whites, probably my favourite British butterfly
On my way back from another failed search for Common Clubtails I decided to try Aust services where White-letter Hairstreaks were breeding last year.
Though the elm trees drew a blank I was extremely fortunate to find one of these elusive butterflies nectaring on brambles nearby. This is the first time I have ever seen one relatively low down
It was a rather tatty individual but this was definitely its better side.
My last exciting find this week was again while searching for dragonflies. I happened to pass a group of 4 Poplar trees. As always I checked the trunk in case of Hornet Clearwing but this time, - unlike every other time in my entire life- there was actually a pair sitting there.
That's the second clearwing moth species I have found without a lure this year. All this extra time is paying off in some ways at least.
Admittedly a couple of days were mostly dragonfly searching but in the absence of any particularly interesting sightings I will stick with butterflies.
A comma from last week was the first of an obvious hatch
On Wednesday my car was booked in for a service in a North Bristol garage, so I took the opportunity to avail myself of the offered courtesy car and spend a morning in Lower Woods reserve near Badminton.
The shade was very welcome as the mercury hit 29 degrees C by lunchtime. Such heat meant that butterflies were very active and thus hard to snap but perseverance paid off with the two species I most wanted to see
First a couple of White Admirals were present, though they stayed a bit high even when perched
Next were Silver-washed Fritillaries. I was despairing of ever seeing one land when I met a fellow naturalist called Rod Holbrook whose work I had seen on twitter. He had only gone a few yards further down the track before he called me over to point out an individual that kept stopping briefly in a sunny patch
On a couple of other occasions, earlier in the week I had seen Marbled Whites, probably my favourite British butterfly
On my way back from another failed search for Common Clubtails I decided to try Aust services where White-letter Hairstreaks were breeding last year.
Though the elm trees drew a blank I was extremely fortunate to find one of these elusive butterflies nectaring on brambles nearby. This is the first time I have ever seen one relatively low down
It was a rather tatty individual but this was definitely its better side.
My last exciting find this week was again while searching for dragonflies. I happened to pass a group of 4 Poplar trees. As always I checked the trunk in case of Hornet Clearwing but this time, - unlike every other time in my entire life- there was actually a pair sitting there.
That's the second clearwing moth species I have found without a lure this year. All this extra time is paying off in some ways at least.
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