Friday 21st July

Yellow Underwing

About a week ago I was starting to feel optimistic about butterflies.  An (albeit) tatty small tortoiseshell and a red admiral were early visitors to the blooming buddleia and, while attacking some wayward bamboo, I disturbed this item from the foliage which research suggests to be a yellow underwing moth.  I snapped it just before it crawled under my pullover.

A brief outburst of warm and sunny weather encouraged me to follow up with a trip to see what butterflies were around at Mabie Forest on Monday.  I'd spotted a path off from the road to Troston that I thought would lead to the main butterfly walk near Craigbill Hill.  Sure enough it did, but not with the results I would have expected on such a good day in midsummer.

In fact there was nothing at all on the main signposted walk except for a couple of fritillaries and a few ringlets.  I couldn't believe it.  I would have thought the place would have been teeming with butterflies and started to wonder if the poor weather throughout most of June had aversely affected numbers in quite a severe way.  The contrast with

Dark Green Fritillary

previous visits could not have been more stark.

In fact there were more to be seen on the way to and from the walk, so that I managed to spot dark green fritillary, meadow brown and ringlet on the way there.  Then, having more or less given up on the chance of seeing any blues, the walk back to the car turned up trumps as there were half a dozen male common blues flying around some yellow vetch and also a singular small copper on the path itself.

A couple of green-veined whites showed up late on but obvious inhabitants like small heath and small pearl-bordered fritillary were not visible and I doubt if I saw more than about thirty butterflies (including other whites) in the whole 3.5 hours I was in the area.

One interesting thing I did see (and was pleased to identify) was a common spotted ocrchid, if somewhat past its best.

Common Blue

Meadow Brown

Small Copper