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.