Had planned to visit a few sites in the meon valley today but a kids football tournament intervened - damn. So i consoled my self with an early visit to a small site close by where I discovered a VERY small colony of small blue last year. The site is just a short track about 150m long on Portsdown h...

Had a sweltering walk around Old Winchester Hill yesterday and the butterflies were out in force despite the baking heat. Small Heaths were almost uncountable - I got to sixty five in an hour or so then stopped! Good numbers of common blues and nine Dukes made the trip a very pleasurable - despite t...

Thanks Pauline - I definately will. Wall was a very common butterfly on 'the hill ' forty years ago and didn't warrant a second look - like an awful lot of other places. I will definately keep my eyes open and it would be wonderful to have this butterfly just a short walk from home - I have had to t...

Hi Pauline - the paulsgrove site can be a bit daunting but glad you found the small blues. Portsdown hill is the area where I first gained my own interest in all things wild in the late sixties and early seventies. I spent many happy hours searching for slow worms, butterflies, orchids and the like ...

Hi Pauline - glad you enjoyed Rake Bottom it's a truly incredible place - one of the few places I'm the south where you have to crane your neck to see the sky when you are in the valley bottom. Even better it's got a great variety and number of butterflies at this time of the year. I was there last ...

Count me in - the last one seemed to pass me by mark

Thanks for your comprehensive reply Neil and it somewhat confirmed my suspicions. It is interesting to a note your comment on how different phenology effect the timing of Sussex and Hants Dukes. This would seem to suggest that the point of no return for Hants sites may have passed? However in my sea...

Perhaps I should know this but............. Is there a ‘point of no return’  for a pupa whereby  the adult has to emerge and expand its wings no matter what the prevailing weather conditions?   I live on the South Coast of Hampshire and like just about everywhere the weather has been unseasonal with...

After the interminable cloud and rain of the last few days I spotted that the sky started to brighten about two o'clock so quickly gathered some waterproofs and headed up the A3 to my local Duke of butgundy site at Buser Hill. The sun actually broke through a few times but it was really cold and win...

No butterflies today - unsurprisingly - but did manage to photograph this regular visitor to my garden- at last :) There are a pair of sparrowhawks that have nested nearby over the last few years but only the male seems to visit my birdfeeders - regularly! He has a cunning strategy of a high speed l...

Well as I look out of the window on the sunny south cost the rain is torrential and has been for twelve hours or more. So much for getting out to look for PBF as I had hoped :twisted: Perhaps just as worrying are the gale force northerly winds that we have had over night. Combined with the rain it h...

I Looked at the forecast today and thought there would be some chance of sun this afternoon, after an appalling morning, so we took a chance and drove to Pignal Inclosure in the New Forest in search of PBF. The showers were horrendous on the way down but the sun broke through just as we pulled into ...

It was nice to bump into you too dave. I haven't had time to process my photos yet but yours are great! Managed to see four dukes and added green hairstreak and holly blue at another site on the way home before the hailstorms set in - again!
Hope to bump into you again soon mark

I popped back up to Butser hill at lunchtime but was not very hopeful :( However between the showers the sun crept through and managed to see Orange Tips, Green Hairstreak, good numbers of Grizzled Skippers and Green Veined White. No Dukes buit I have added some pictures of the one I saw on monday. ...

Morning all - saw the grim forecast for the week and took a chance to go to Butser Hill yesterday. It was very cool but I knew the south facing slopes should be a bit warmer if the sun came out. The fisrt walk up the valley only revealed two grizzled skippers so I sat for a while and had a drink as ...

Just had a look at the photos posted on hants bc of the large tortoiseshell seen at Walters copse by Sue Davies on 2 April and it seems that it is a different one from Paul's. Took advantage of the sun yesterday and went to buster hill. Half a dozen Grizzled Skippers, Orange Tips and a welcome Small...

Hi All not sure wheteher this has been picked up yet but yet another Large Tortoishell has been spotted - and more importantly photographed - this time in Hampshire. It was spotted in Havant by a respected local naturalist Brian Fellowes. The location was a small group of trees in a largely built up...

Hi All interestingly Sue Clarke of Wessex Environmental gave a fascinating talk at the Hants BC annual members day on the 'Mysteries of the Wood White' She and Dave Green have made a very detailed study of the Wood White and it complicated genetics across europe. She also noted that in many hundreds...

I have both Wallflower and a Campanula in my garden which have come into flower in the last couple of days and I spotted a pair of Robins were gathering nesting material this morning.
Mark T

This is a great thread and I am somewhat startled about the similarities so i'll recount my tale. You will have to forgive some of the 'non PC' subjects as my tale starts in abvout 1968 when it was quite acceptable to collect butterflies and I definately could not afford a camera - let alone film an...