A Good Year For Butterflies...

As far as I'm concerned, it's definitely a good year for butterflies.

I've had my eye on the developing nature reserve at Chopwell East Field.  Over the winter I noticed it was being grazed by highland cattle and wondered what the results would be this summer.  I eventually revisited last Tuesday to find another abundant supply of butterflies.

In the more Southern area the initial accent was actually on moths as around seven five-spot (I think) burnet moths were found nectaring on knapweed, with a similar number of shaded broad bars showing up as well.

Five-spot Burnet

Shaded Broadbar

Again the dominant species in terms of numbers were meadow brown (some already very worn) and small skipper but also seen were large white, green-veined white, comma. small copper, and small tortoiseshell.

Comma	Green-veined White
Meadow Brown (worn)	Small Copper
Small Skipper	Small Tortoiseshell

I took a little detour into a promising field the other path and noted similar activity.  But on the way back I stopped to photo what I suspected to be a white-tailed bumblebee when it was chased off by another small butterfly that turned out to be a white letter hairstreak.

White-tailed Bumblebee

White Letter Hairstreak

This was a considerable surprise as I have never heard of a white letter hairstreak being reported there and I do not believe there are any elm trees.  It is however clear that there have been more of them about this year.

To trump it all  I achieved a longstanding ambition the day after when i managed to get a couple of distant snaps of purple hairstreaks in the oaks by one of the viaducts at Hamsterley Mill.  Unfortunately they weren't in great condition.

Purple Hairstreak

Meanwhile the first butterfly has been sighted on the buddleia in the front garden.  It was a red admiral.

A Good Year For Butterflies?

Last weekend I visited J&J in Drerbyshire and on the Sunday we took a visit to Carsington Water.  I'd been there before but more on the look out for birds.

In spite of a little rain and a few overcast periods, there was little difficulty in finding butterflies, though my first positive sighting apart from hoverflies was actually a common blue damselfly. 

Common Blue Damselfly

Meadow browns were all over the place but it was particularly pleasing to me that there were also a good few gatekeepers - surely the first time I've seen them in the UK since I was a youngster in Nottinghamshire.

Gatekeeper (underwing)

Gatekeeper (upper wing)

Confusion with meadow brown is possible but the gatekeeper has a double 'eye' spot on the underwing and clear orange colouring on the lower upper wing, which the meadow brown does not.

Almost as good was when J pointed out that there were small coppers.  These have already been reported in the North East but especially good to get after a I messed up the first photo opportunity.

Small Copper

Small skippers were again numerous and we also saw two small tortoiseshell and a few commas and ringlets

Comma

Ringlet

The notable absentees today were common blue (again) and small heath.

We had a quick look at the lake but didn't see much of interest.  I thought I spotted a little egret but it seems to be a juvenile.

Egret

After two hours we hadn't got very far and I spent an annoying twenty minutes trying to catch up with a very mobile sedge warbler, J's camera battery having given out.  In the end I got half of it as it played hide 'n' seek in the bushes.

Find the sedge warbler!

Small White and Green-veined White

There were some large whites at times too.

All in all, a very enjoyable visit

Hunting For Butterflies

A lot has been going on!..

About ten days ago I took a last trip to Pathhead Nature Reserve for a late attempt to find the dingy skipper.

It was unsuccessful although I did see large numbers of meadow brown, good numbers of small skipper plus a fair few small heath and a couple of (I think) six-spot burnet moths, most of which were to be duplicated in subsequent trips elsewhere.  A notable absentee was common blue and perhaps the strangest sighting was a common carder bee that was so heavily bleached by the sun that it was almost indistinguishable.

Small Heath

Common Carder (bleached)

In the preceding fortnight there had been several sightings of patchwork leafcutter bees and always on the same flower which I'm not able to name but it was an obvious favourite.

Patchwork Leafcutter Bee

This turned out to be the start of a good for finding butterflies...