Summer Butterflying!!

Well, its been a while - but I haven't done any big holidays yet and birding has been  mainly at my local patch, Brascote gravel pits which has been fairly quite. It's started to pick up recently, with a Garganey which actually hung around for a few weeks, and two Great white Egrets - which are getting a lot more common in the county.  I've done a couple of twitches - one down to Cornwall for the Brown Booby and then to Anglesy for an Eastern yellow Wagtail..... but no images I'm afraid.  In the summer when birding goes quiet, lots of birders turn to other flying creatures like dragonflies and butterflies. I'm trying to see and photograph all of the butterflies of Britain (of which there are 59);  at the start of the summer, I had seen 48, so I was keen to add a few more to list this year. It started on the 15th of May, when, along  with my mate Ben Croxall, we headed for Bison Hill in Bedfordshire for the Duke of Burgundy.  We saw the butterfly but didn't manage to get any images which gives me a great excuse  to return at some point!
Again with Ben, on the 22nd May, we went to the Wyre Forest in Gloucestershire in search of the Pearl- bordered Fritillary; this is a great site and we saw lots of these butterflies.

 Pearl-bordered Fritillary

 Underwing of the Pearl-bordered Fritillary

(note the 'ducks head' -the orange patch with the black spot -  which is a good field characteristic)

 Pearl-bordered Fritillary

On May 27th, I went to Strumpshaw Fen (an RSPB Reserve in Norfolk) with my good friend Dave Gray in search of the Swallowtail. After walking around the reserve for three hours and almost giving up, we came upon a group who  told us they had seen one in some scrub-land close to the carpark; it was only a couple of minutes later that we saw this stunning butterfly in flight (but again, no images - so that's another site I will have to re-visit!)

My wife and I had decided to visit Wadebridge in early June to go to the Royal Cornwall Show, so we made arrangements to meet the warden of Lydford NT (near Okehampton) who had very kindly agreed to take us to Lydford Gorge in the hope of seeing Heath Fritillary and Small Pearl-bordered Fritillary. Again, what a great site - and we managed to see both species.Many thanks to Colin for sharing his time and knowledge with us.

 Heath Fritillary

 Heath Fritillary underwing

 Small Pearl-bordered Fritillary

 Small Pearl-bordered Fritillary

My wife had been saying how she would like to visit Osborne House again (on the Isle Of Wight) as she hadn't been there in many a year, so we decided that we would try to kill two birds with one stone by visiting sometime in June, to coincide with the flight period of the Glanville Fritillary. This is probably now one of  the only reliable sites left in Britain for this particular butterfly. We found ourselves at Compton Bay, however the weather was far too windy, with gusts of upto 50mph, so no joy. We returned the following day, and despite it still being very breezy, it was warmer, and we spotted the individual below on the footpath!  This was our one of only two butterflies we spotted, so we were very happy. As an aside - Osborne House is amazing and well worth a visit.

 Glanville Fritillary

 Glanville Fritillary

In a beautiful day in early July, Dave and I went in search of the Large Blue at Daneway Bank in Gloucestershire. My first observation on entering the site was the vast amounts of Marbled Wite butterflies on the wing; I've never seen so many at one site! After an hour of looking for our quarry, we eventually saw some, including a couple who were mating. 

 Large Blue

 Large Blue

Large Blues mating

I am pleased to be able to say that my British Butterfly list now stands at 55; only left 4 to get - but one will need a trip over the Irish Sea to Northern Ireland for the Cryptic White. It's a hard life!!

As always, thanks for stopping by to read of my exploits. It won't be so long before my next blog this time, as I'm going to South Africa in the not too distant future........