Time to squeeze in another trip to
Bookham Common this afternoon on my usual half day at work. Tomorrow I plan to go down to the south coast in search of Clouded Yellows and anything else that may get blown across the the Channel, hopefully some Adonis action as well and maybe a late Wall or two. Anyway, work means I wont be able to check on my WA cats for at least a week.
As usual I started off in Brown Hairstreak territory. The weather wasn't great, warmish but mostly cloudy and with a distinctly autumnal nip to the air. Nothing much was flying, singles of faded female Gatekeeper and Common Blue and a couple of female Meadow Browns and the odd Speckled Wood. However, arriving at my Brown Hairstreak spot near their Master trees, I disturbed a rather lovely Red Admiral.
She was a bit flighty and with all the long grass I wasn't able to get very close. It wasn't until I got home and looked at the pictures properly that I realised I had a unusual ab. A series of blue spots along the inside of the hindwing red band.
I've looked in all the usual places but can't find anything like it, gutted that I wasn't able to get better pictures of her!
After she buggered off over a hedge leaving me all alone I decided to look for Hairstreak eggs. On virtually the first piece of oak I looked at I found this:
I don't rate it's chances of getting much past Christmas at the latest, not very well hidden at all! Bad parenting skills
I didn't find any more Purples so I wandered over to some low growing bushy Blackthorn to try my luck at finding my first ever Brown....BINGO!
Just like the adults, bigger than you expect
![Smile :)](./images/smilies/icon_smile.gif)
and sticking out like that how any make it to hatching god alone knows! They are both low down, 6 or 7 inches of the ground at most which may help them avoid Tits and the like but if a half blind Wren staggers past surely they'll be gonners!
Interstingly, as the above picture shows, they have been laid in an area that was cut back allowing fresh low growth to shoot up over the summer, just what female BH are supposed to prefer
Well, over at the WA Towers I found Shifty/Sid missing, just an abandoned leaf to show where he'd been. There was no sign of any hibernaculum so I have to conclude MIA and most likely eaten
Lofty is still feeding:
Cyril seems to be somewhat confused having eaten most of what could be used to construct a hibernaculum...
and Brian II is well and truly asleep in the tiniest hibernaculum in the world!
New boy Stan doesn't seem to have moved since Saturday.
After this update I returned to the Hairstreak eggs to make sure I was able to track them down easily again
Found them
![Very Happy :D](./images/smilies/icon_biggrin.gif)
.... a few more things to keep an eye on over the winter....should they last that long!