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.
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| 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.
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Gatekeeper (underwing) |
|  | | Gatekeeper (upper wing) |
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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.
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| Small Copper |
Small skippers were again numerous and we also saw two small tortoiseshell and a few commas and ringlets
 | | Comma |
|  | | Ringlet |
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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.
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| 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.
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| Find the sedge warbler! |
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| Small White and Green-veined White |
There were some large whites at times too.
All in all, a very enjoyable visit
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