Saturday 30th July

On Monday I again took advantage of a sunnier day to try a walk round Mark Hill at Rockcliffe.  Initial signs in the garden were promising as teo or three red admirals were showing on the buddleia.

I somehow took it into my head that there might be a chance of a purple hairstreak but, although there were a few oak trees on the way back down, there was no sign of anything much at all apart from some whites. Afterwards I did a detour to the Mote of Mark, where there was a nice flower meadow and some more red admirals plus a few meadow browns.

One of them seemed to be behaving slightly different way to the others, flattering way down in the grass, so I took a few photographs in case it was a grayling.  But it wasn't.

In fact the most interesting nature moment was when a couple of red deer crossed over the path early on my way up the hill. This reminds me that I didn't do full justice to the walk around Mabie I did last week.  On the way up the narrow road to Troston, a couple of cars had pulled up.  I couldn't understand why and drove on slowly to discover a lady shepherding a baby red deer that was in the roadside undergrowth to safety.

I also forgot to report that there were a good number of dragonflies around, as there were on Mark Hill.  I think this one is a golden-ringed dragonfly.

Gold-ringed dragonfly

On reflection, I reckon I did the wrong walk today.  More interesting might have been to walk along the coast to walk along the coast towards Point Warren, looking for holly blues.  That may be my next venture.