Thanks Goldie, I'm struggling manfully through it!
Musings of a butterfly addict.
Well with my butterfly season drawing to a close it must be time to do an end of term review.
My first full year as a member of this forum was, for me, a year of firsts. I’ve never really ‘twitched’ anything before this year but twitching butterflies all over south east England gave me 12 lifers to get my personal challenge off to a flying start and of the 45 species I saw I managed to photograph 44 of them, only that Purple Emperor eluded me.
However that was only a small setback with so many highlights filling the year. Looking back my top five highlights are catching my first sight of a Duke in the Chilton’s, which happened to be a fresh Duchess.
A day trip to Wurzels Wiltshire Wonderland to watch hundreds of Marsh Fritillaries materialising as if by magic from the course turf as the day warmed, as well as many other late spring species.
Watching masses of Heath Fritillary flit and glide around a sunlit glade.
Catching sight of my first ever Brown Hairstreak.
And finally, finishing off my season with a rare Clouded Yellow ab. Even if I wasn’t aware of it at the time!
2015 was also notable for an ever present wind
![Rolling Eyes :roll:](./images/smilies/icon_rolleyes.gif)
; I can count the number of days on one hand when there wasn’t at least a stiff breeze to annoy me! Despite this and the rather topsy turvy weather I have very little to complain about. Going through my records for the year I find I’ve amassed over 5,800 photos
![Shocked :shock:](./images/smilies/icon_eek.gif)
(and that’s just butterflies and ignoring all the ones that got binned!
![Shocked :shock:](./images/smilies/icon_eek.gif)
). Most species seemed to appear a week or two late, certainly from June onwards. I suspect the cool May had something to do with that.
At the beginning of the year my list looked like this:
2015 started off slowly for me and I had to wait until 7th March to see my first butterfly, a Brimstone.
Six weeks later in April I had the first of my 2015 lifers, a Green Hairstreak, quickly followed by two more, Dingy and Grizzled Skippers all on the same day.
Despite the below par May weather, I managed 5 more lifers; Pearl Bordered Fritillary, Duke of Burgundy, Glanville Fritillary, Small Blue and that trip to Wurzels Wiltshire Wonderland for his Marshies.
The ‘June gap’ still gave me the East Blean Wood Heath Fritillary experience.
July arrived with me discovering Bookham Commons in search for a Purple Experience. I only had two fleeting glimpses of HIM but my repeated visits were still rewarded by some excellent Silver Washed Fritillary action, a couple of close encounters with the little purple one and another lifer, the White Admiral.
I discovered a fantastic White-letter hairstreak site, thanks to a tip through this forum, where most of the colony seems to come down to feed on waist height Bramble blossom, and spent two very happy afternoons enjoying the company of that lifer.
Back at Bookham Commons I started to follow some White Admiral larvae and into August my continuing visits there got me the Brown Hairstreak, lifer number 12 for the year.
The end of my year was spent with repeated ‘final’ visits to Newhaven in search of the illusive LTB. Despite not seeing any I did stumble across a rather lovely Clouded Yellow which unbeknownst to me at the time turned out to be a rather rare ab. A great high to finish off my season
I also had the pleasure to meet fare few fellow butterfliers including 3 UKBers,
Mrsp0ck, Susie and B’rex, whilst discovering lots of beautiful places to visit, perfect antidotes to life in the big city even without all the butterfly chasing
![Smile :)](./images/smilies/icon_smile.gif)
!
All this butterfly twitching improved the look of my list no end
![Very Happy :D](./images/smilies/icon_biggrin.gif)
!
Looking back at all my pictures, and there is an awful lot of them
![Embarassed :oops:](./images/smilies/icon_redface.gif)
, I’d say my photography has improved over the year.....but then after so many pictures you would hope something would improve! I’ve actually started using fully manual settings after years of letting my camera do all the work for me.
Roll on 2016!