Tuesday 18th August

Expectations are often disappointed but occasionally exceeded and sometimes you get a nice surprise.

Looking for a walk last Monday, I decided to try Whittle Dene, which is pleasant early in the summer, for butterflies.  However it was all a bit overgrown and dry and there wasn't much to see - some whites, a few peacocks and a single pair of speckled wood.  It only served to pose the question where all the speckled woods have got to this year, though I've seen a small number since.  And no meadow butterflies at all.

So on the Tuesday I decided to be more targetted and headed to the heathland area at Havannah, thinking I should easily be able to see some common blues, dingy skippers and some burnet moths plus a few others.  In fact after a single burnet it was the others that made the time worthwhile as blues and skippers were absent, leaving me without a single one this summer.

After thinking there may be no butterflies at all, I started to see some small heath and, after some foraging, three or four small copper.  The latter were particularly pleasing as I didn't see any last year when I looked and, come to think of it, I'm not too sure when I last saw a small heath either.  I was also treated to the sight of two small coppers chasing each other around crazily, presumably in some sort of mating ritual.  I hadn't seen them do that before.

Small Heath

Small Copper

The back end of the week was spent in Dumfries, where the temperature was about 6' higher.  We made a little trip out to Mossdale to walk the Paddy Line track briefly.  Unfortunately it had been rather spoiled as the Forestry Commission have put down a roughcast road on top of it and the rocks have spilled over onto the roadside vegetation.  Target was the scotch argus and there were a few about, if somewhat unsettled.  In the end we saw about six, along with a dozen more peacocks and a few red admirals. So it was one expectation achieved.  I also had an eye out for the wall butterfly and may have seen a couple but couldn't prove it.

Scotch Argus

Nothing new to report in the garden apart from a young wood pigeon but I have enjoyed watching the juvenile robin gradually acquire his red breast.  It's not quite there yet so he's more of a chaffinchy colour just now.

Young Wood Pigeon (n.b. lack of markings)