Urban Sightings and Fritillary Forage

Quite a bit has happened over the past week!

I've had my eye on a brownfield site near the Metro Centre that has a fair spread of bird's food trefoil. So I thought it might be a possible for Common Blue or Dingy Skipper and took a look last Friday.

Tramping through the brambles and various forms of litter I saw neither but what did turn up was three or four small heath - the first I have seen this year.  I checked back briefly the day after and they were still about.

Small Heath

Giving up the idea of more sightings I decided to try out a cycle route to the town centre I've never used. But a bit beyond Dunston on Teams Road I stopped to watch a red admiral I thought might be ovipositing on nettles.  Lo and behold what should then fly over the road side habitation but a common blue.  I saw about four of them and a brown butterfly that proved to be a large skipper - both first sightings for this year as well:

Common Blue

Large Skipper

It just shows that urban environments can too easily be overlooked.

One thing that I haven't seen since I moved to the North East has been any kind of fritillary.  So on Monday I decided to return to one of my old haunts - Mabie Forest near Dumfries to see if I could find any there.

It wasn't the most brilliant day with reduced temperatures and only intermittent sunshine so I was relieved when my first sighting came along - perhaps unsurprisingly another small blue,  There was four overall, as at Dunston all males.  And even better I actually managed to spot the first pearl-bordered fritillary before even reaching the known 'butterfly hotspot.'

Common Blue

Pearl-bordered Fritillary

This is the time of the year when pearl-bordered and small pearl-bordered fritillary flight seasons overlap and there are identification issues.  Several were only seen in flight making proper identification impossible but one among the ones I photographed and one seen in flight were heavily worn suggesting pearl-bordered, indicating they were definitely in preponderance.

There was however one possibility that I had overlooked and as a result initially misidentified:

Dark Green Fritillary

What surprised me here was that I associate them with late rather than early summer at Mabie.  However from a total of nine it may be they accounted for some of the ones flying past, notably those strong on the wing.

I was also surprised by the number of dragonflies that were about right at the beginning of June: Hopefully I've got them right.

Common Blue Damselfly

Emperor Dragonfly

There were also a couple of moths:

Brown Silverline

Cinnebar Moth

There were perhaps 10 of the brown silverline on the day.  The only other time I have seen cinnebar moths was I think at Dumfries station.

There were also a couple of mysteries which had me facebooking the experts:

Blotched-winged Whitebelt

Tibula Scripta

I have a separate photo that proves the white belt bit on the first one.  The other one is a cranefly, and craneflies are a notoriously tricky area.  The wings of tibula scripta are transparent in the photos I've seen so I suspect they may be giving an image of the background leaf.

Other butterflies seen were green-veined white and four speckled wood, which I mention because they were not much present in Dumfries and Galloway when I lived there.

On leaving the 'butterfly hotspot' I still hadn't spotted a small pearl-bordered fritillary and was beginning to speculate that, as the more common species, their development had been held back by the dry weather.

However, just over halfway back to the car park one turned up in a clearing where two paths meet:

Small Pearl-Bordered fritillary

A bit of luck always enters into it!

Meanwhile there has also been activity in the garden.

A few days ago I was very pleased to see a couple of goldfinches plundering the seed in one of my pots that has been invaded by forget-me-nots.  I've never seen them in the garden before.  Also the bullfinches continue to enjoy the sunflower hearts from the feeder.

Another near misidentification (which has been a bit of a theme lately) but I've also been getting visits from patchwork leafcutter bees of both genders.

Bullfinch

Patchwork Leafcutter Bee

Return to Dumfries - Day 3

On the last full day of my visit (27th May) the UK weather forecast was for bright and sunny weather from the outset. Not so however in the Burgh of Dumfries where it remained overcast until late morning.  I hung around a bit and did some minor shopping, then I left the bicycle at the B&B and drove to Mabie Forest for a butterfly walk around the brown track, arriving around 11.15.

Shortly after I started out I was greeted by the ninth incidence of a cuckoo calling over the three days, proving my observation that they are more common in Dumfries and Galloway than in the North East.

Then before I even reached the key area for butterflies, the sun came out and I saw what I had been looking for - three pearl-bordered fritillaries. This increased to double that as I reached the start of the south facing slope on the way to Craigsbill Hill, which is where most butterflies are seen,

Unfortunately the sun went in again around midday and I spent at least another hour sitting round and having lunch before I walked the full length of the path,

Pearl-bordered fritillaries proved to be the dominant species and I was still seeing them later on the way back to the car park, amassing a conservative count of 38 in total and discounting extra sightings on a stretch I walked twice.

I kept taking photographs of some when possible just to check that none were small pearl-bordered fritillaries as a chap who was doing a transect survey reckoned the latter could just about be on the wing for the first time.  However all the ones I observed or captured with the camera were pearl-bordered.

Pearl-bordered fritillary

Pearl-bordered fritillary (underwing)

While waiting for the sun to come out, I noticed several small orange moths flying but none were settling.  Once the sun was out, this changed and they could be seen to be clouded yellow moths. 

Clouded Yellow Moth

Further along the path, as I'd half expected there were four or five small heath and the smallest small copper  I have ever seen.  It really looked quite curiously stunted, with wing movements that vaguely ressembled a skipper.  Apparently however, small coppers are subject to considerable variations - perhaps another result of the poor weather..

Small Heath

Small Copper

As well as a good few green-veined white and orange tip, there was I couple of large white I spotted on the wing, the first I have seen this year.  Lastly there was a bumblebee that I really could not identify and am awaiting clarification on.  It looks like it might just be another cuckoo!

Another Cuckoo?

Passing a hovering kestrel at the viewpoint on the hill, I decided I was too tired to look for a Whinchat at Kirkconnell Flow and the trip was over.

16th May

On Sunday I took part in an organised walk with the local branch of Butterfly Conservation.  The key target was the pearl-bordered fritillary, generally rare but fairly frequent on the butterfly walk at Mabie Forest.

Pearl-bordered fritillary

The great advantage here is that the small pearl-bordered fritillary is not yet on the wing, so there are no possible identification problems. Plus the conservationists had permission to take cars onto the reserve cutting out the longish walk from the car park, so it seemed too good an opportunity to miss.

Everyone saw the pearl-bordered fritillary within minutes of arriving and, although a count was not kept, there must have been about 20 that I saw during the walk.  Apparently the success at preserving the pearl-bordered at Mabie is down to maintaining an open access along the paths with plenty of dry bracken.

Other main species encountered were clouded yellow moth, wall, small copper, small heath, green-veined white, orange tip (24 - I did count them) and a single peacock.

I also learned how small mini-moths can get and saw my first carpet moth.

As an additional bonus, one of the group who is also a birder flushed a female cuckoo that then spent a good while observing us from a distant tree stump.  Seemingly they mainly target willow warbler nests in the area.

Female cuckoo

It was certainly three hours well spent.