Thanks, all. I still find it difficult to understand that Meadow Browns have one long emergence rather than two broods. The first ones emerge in May, the last in September or even October some years. As they spend the winter as caterpillars, how is it that some take only a two or three months after the winter to become butterflies, yet others take twice that time and more. Anyway, it's good to see some fresh ones at any time.
What a lousy week of weather again. There were virtually no opportunities to go anywhere at all. The only interest was this large hedgehog found on my doorstep on the evening of Bank Holiday Monday.
It wouldn't budge, the reason being that it had found a supply of maggots somewhere near a rubbish bin, and was happily chomping them. On 1st September, I had a brief walk as there was a bit of brightness late on. Nothing flew, but for some reason I was looking up and spotted a Red Admiral settled up in a tree.
It was Saturday before I went out again. On today's excursion I managed to rescue three more Red Admiral Caterpillars from the chop.
There has been a good deal of mowing round here this week, including the area where the Small Heaths fly. Compare this with the photo I took last week.
The only butterfly I managed to photograph was a Green-veined White.
Sunday 6th September: As forecast, but hard to believe, a sunny day. I've just changed my car, so I decided to give it a spin and go somewhere new. I therefore headed for Steyning and the chance of Brown Hairstreaks eager to lay after being grounded by cloud and rain. With surprisingly little traffic about, it took only an hour and a half (if that). As I didn't really know where to go, it was lucky that there were little signs pointing to some kind of event at the Rifle Range: I followed those. Almost as soon as I entered the main field from the appropriately marked gate ("Welcome to Butterfly Land"), a bright orange butterfly flew across in front of me and down the slope. It settled on the ground for a while, first basking and then apparently sucking up moisture from the dew on the grass. It then headed for the hedgerow and disappeared. A Brown Hairstreak within minutes!
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I then approached the main stand of blackthorn (and other prunus - some of the little dark plums were delicious), and over the next couple of hours, I must have seen half a dozen Brown Hairstreaks.
Several were seen flying low across the slopes, landing on the small scrubby blackthorn just outside the fence and then disappearing the bushes inside to lay eggs. They seem to almost fall out of these bushes when they leave them, and it is unsurprising that they damage their wings in the process. Most inelegant. I walked around the top of the slopes as well, but saw nothing up there except for a worn female Common Blue, and elsewhere there were numerous Speckled Woods, a couple of Holly Blues, a few Meadow Browns and a Brimstone.
The downside today was that in the middle of proceedings, the screen on my camera gave up the ghost.
![Sad :(](./images/smilies/icon_sad.gif)
I carried on taking pictures, but most were out of focus, or of half a butterfly. The fact that any came out at all is astonishing.
Just as I returned to the car, I bumped into Neil Hulme and family on their way to the event up the hill. All looked very well, and Neil said there might be a slight detour of a hairstreak-related kind at some point... As ever, good to see you, Neil!
Dave