Due to various difficulties that I won't bore you with I'm still having difficulties getting photos up loaded but I thought I'd update my diary anyway before I forget and hopefully a few photos will follow soon.
My couple of weeks off work during August was a wash out with my few butterflying forays scuppered by the dismal weather and my trips to steyning and other places returned nothing of interest except blackberries.
My local patch for brown hairstreak seemed to have dried up this year with very few sightings in the area.
On Saturday morning I again cancelled my plans to go to steyning due to the weather but by the afternoon the forecast was looking more favourable so I went to Denbies to walk the hound and to see if anything was hanging on there butterfly wise. Trusty camera slung in back pack off we trundled. I was quite dismayed to see cows in the lower field but they seemed placid. It was lovely to bump into Bugboy and I was grateful to be informed that there were indeed butterflies still about and some pretty new. It wasnt long before the hound and me were finding butterflies of our own with fresh Adonis, chalk hill and silver spotted skippers being about. Once the sun came out it was wonderful a the butterflies opened their wings and the grass became studded with the most wonderful blues.
Back at home there have been some beautiful fresh painted ladies in the garden lately as well as red admiral, small torts, and it's been a bumper year for holly blue.
Yesterday I finally got to Steyning in the morning and with the sun shining. Huzzah!!!!
Last time I was there I didn't see anything and I lost my brown hairstreak open winged pin badge. Gutted
Perhaps it wanted to join it name sakes.
This was much better though. It wasn't long before I bumped into another enthusiast who told me a brown hairstreak had been seen about half an hour before. I was pleased to spot one in the trees nearly straight away, it didn't appear to be coming down to eye level any time soon so I decided to move along and found another hairstreak engaged in a tussle with a speckled wood. When the hairstreak settled we were able to watch her crawl among the blackthorn for quite some time. Further up the slope I saw two more, again one at close quarters and another in the trees.
On my way back I bumped into Neil and the one he had whispered as if by magick to show his guests earlier in the day was a different one to those I had seen. With there being a good number of brownies about this is a site definitely still worth visiting. At this time of year every butterflying day is a bonus taking us nearer to the start of next years season!
(even if only by merit of tagging along and letting others do all the work). 
, oh and the cows are Belted Galloways 
just one word, wow!!!
