Bugboys mission

[bugboy]

Hi Wurzel, I think Small Heaths still have some way to go before the beat Walls as the most annoying butterfly !
Thanks David & Pauline, I'm glad I'm still keeping peoples attention after all this time
Thanks Sonam, I'm very much enjoying your posts as well, nice to have something different to look at

9/6/16 Chiltons

I wanted to see if there were any Dukes still hanging on at my usual site. The forecast promised sunny intervals to start with but as usual they got it wrong, on the plus side it was a different wrong this time, wall to wall blue sky from the moment I got off the train.

Aldbury Nowers Nature Reserve seems to be having a severe case of ‘june gap’ at the moment with, apart from Speckled Woods, singles of Common Blue, Brown Argus, Small White, Small Copper and Small Blue.

Not sure what this little micro is

I spent a bit of time on my knees looking through Kidney Vetch flowers for Small Blue eggs, something I tried and failed to find last year. Today I was successful and found 6 on 3 flower heads. The eggs of Britain’s smallest butterfly, probably the smallest thing I’ve tried to photograph.

There was also a Large Skipper who was much more well behaved than yesterday’s one!

Moving onto the hillsides that separate the nature reserve from Ivinghoe beacon, butterflies became more plentiful, in particular, Brown Argus seem to have had a recent mass emergence with many looking quite stunning! It’s not too surprising at the amount of them since the entire slope is carpeted in flowering Rock-rose

Common Blues were also out in numbers as were Small Heath

An hour later I arrived at the Beacon and set about seeing if any Dukes were still active. I found one male behind the car park who looked to be in reasonable condition but more searching proved fruitless.

Oh, in case anyone is curious as to why I go out at every available opportunity, you don’t get scenery like this in London!

Moving on to the gully I was surprised to have an Orange-tip flyby. A male who settled deep in a Bramble thicket but as far as I could tell he looked really very fresh. At the gully there were no Dukes but there was a very fresh and very beautiful male Small Blue who unfortunately refused to bask properly for me. He was a decent size and did look very blue in flight, blue enough for me to think it was a female Common Blue until he landed.

Further on I spent some time watching a female Green Hairstreak be extremely picky about where to leave an egg. Birds-foot Trefoil seemed to be her plant of choice (Rock-rose was also investigated) but nothing seemed to be good enough for her precious load.

I looked for more Dukes but where I saw doubles figures 11 days ago there were now none. Trundling back, I was quite surprised to see what I first thought was a small Dog bounding along towards me.

Before today the only view I’d ever had of a Hare was of a fluffy bum vanishing across a field.

This one really didn’t seem phased by me, I’d ducked down to hide my shape and he just sat there, had a bit of spit and polish of his face and then wandered about a bit before casually sauntering back along the path and off into the grass out of sight.

I'd had a few standard Brimstone encounters already but I found this female tangled up in a spiderweb. A passing male gallantly decided to come to 'rescue' her . When she did escape after a bit of flapping, rather amusingly, the male, in attempting to follow her, then became temporarily caught up in the web himself, allowing her to escape his attentions. I think that’s called ‘butterfly karma’ .

The return journey produced very much similar numbers of Brown Argus, Small Heath and Common Blues and I found another, very patient Green Hairstreak.

Back at Aldbury Nowers I had a good search for Orange-tip caterpillars and found much less than a week before. Many may well have gone off to pupate but I did find this recently moulted 4th instar. The dark mark near his bum is a bit of old skin that hasn’t sloughed off properly. I did find a couple of newly hatched caterpillars as well and it seemed quite feasible that every stage was present today ie: egg, larvae 1st – 4th instar, pupae and adult.

Finally, lurking in the undergrowth I also found this longhorn beetle Stenocorus meridianus.

According to the forecast this was the last decent day for a while…. Just in time for my weekend trip to find Swallowtails…

[Pauline]

You describe your excursions in such a way that I feel as if I have been there - now I wish I had been!! Great shots of the hare

[bugboy]

Thanks Pauline

Norfolk day 1 10/6/16

Well there was only really one reason I was going to Norfolk at this time of the year, probably the British Butterfly I’ve wanted to see more than any other since I was very small. I’d arranged a short weekend break with a friend from work with accommodation booked on the north coast, so it was easy to make a slight detour on the journey up to check out their most famous haunt, Strumpshaw Fen.
Although the week leading up had been sunny if rather muggy, all week the predictions had been for it to break down into all kinds of nasty Swallowtail unfriendly weather by the Friday and so it was that we left London mid-morning under a dreary grey sky.

The weather changed very little and by the time we arrived at the Fen at around 1pm I was somewhat disheartened to learn that although several Swallowtails had been active the previous day, none had been sighted so far today. This detail hadn’t stopped a few photographers from staking out the hot spots though.

We spent about 3 hours here in the end and didn’t see a single butterfly of any description, occasionally the cloud would seem to thin slightly but it was all just to taunt us with false hope. To occupy me there was plenty of other invertebrate life was active, including several of Norfolk’s other famous resident, the Norfolk Hawker dragonfly, although they were very unwilling to come close for a photoshoot.

Hairy Hawker dragonfly female (lifer)

One of the Marsh Orchids, Dactylorhiza?

Wasp Beetle. Since I saw my first a couple of weeks ago these are popping out all over the place!

Hoverflies, Heliophilus pundulus

Scarce Chaser dragonfly female (lifer)

Tertragnatha sp.

Black-tailed Skimmer dragonfly female

Norfolk Hawker dragonfly (lifer)

Avian highlights included watching Marsh Harriers displaying and floating around like they do, a nice lifer for me, with plenty of Warblers and Reed Buntings playing hide and seek in the reeds and hedgerows. Waterfowl on the other hand was very obvious by its absence, just Mallards, Coots and a few Gadwall.

All fingers and toes were firmly crossed that day 2 would be more successful!

[bugboy]

Norfolk day 2 11/6/16, the main course (part 1)

So day two on my short quest for a Swallowtail. After the previous day, surely things could only get better. We awoke early and took a wander into town to find a nice place to have brekkie, a nice full English to keep us fuelled until lunch.

The weather seemed much the same as the previous day but the forecast hinted that we may get a glimpse of some sun in the afternoon and so it was decided (mainly by me to be honest) that we would go back to Strumpshaw first and then visit another recommendation, How Hill, in the afternoon.

It being a Saturday, Strumpshaw was decidedly busier than the previous day with a fair few photographers already awaiting the appearance of at least one large black and yellow butterfly. My own hopes were slightly higher as although still cloudy it did feel a little warmer than Friday and seemed a little brighter.

I decided that I was going to stay at the hotspots today and left my friend to go for another wander around the site.
The first thing to appear was a nicely marked female GVW who lazily fluttered over to the spot by the visitor centre. Her appearance alone made it an improvement on the previous day! She stayed for a fair old time and gave a few photographers something to keep us occupied whilst waiting for the main course.

I stayed here for about 10 minutes before deciding to wander down to the Doctors Garden, bumping into a warden doing a transect who said a couple had been seen earlier. Nothing was here presently though so I took a short wander down to a meadow before returning to find not one but two rather large butterflies flitting around, at last! It felt almost dreamlike finally seeing these wonderfully exotic looking creatures flying around, I could feel my hands shaking as I took my first pictures of a Swallowtail !

The female was quite obviously not in the least bit interested in his attentions and after a minute or so she left with him in hot pursuit. So now the question was should I hang around here or go back to the visitor centre? My question was answered two minutes later when another one appeared and stayed for what seemed like ages (according to the photo data it was only four minutes). The nic out the tip of the left forewing showed that this was the third one of the day.

It was intent on feeding and didn’t stop moving for a second so it was a case of point and shoot. Luckily for me there was only about 5 other people here of which only one had a camera so there was no argy bargy to deal with either, almost a perfect encounter.

4 minutes later I had over 100 pictures bagged and one of the best butterfly memories yet. Species #28 and lifer #2 for the year

You have no idea how difficult it was to whittle it down to just 15 pictures!

[kevling]

Bugboy; Some great aerial shots of the Swallowtail, well done. I was at Strumpshaw last year and when you finally encounter your first one it is a truly magical moment.

Regards Kev

[Katrina]

Brilliant photos. That garden is a very special place. I particularly like the second from last photo.

[millerd]

Those are terrific motion shots of the Swallowtails, Buggy. Off the scale on the envyometer...

Dave

[Jack Harrison]

Sadly Dr.Martin George died on 5th June 2016 aged 86. Tribute:

http://www.edp24.co.uk/news/tributes_ar ... _1_4577947

A decent enough innings but who will take over the garden now he has gone?

Jack

[Maximus]

Nice stuff, bugboy, beautiful Swallowtails The in flight shot (#11) is my fav - looks like an F-15. When we went to Strumpshaw in 2013 and saw our first ever britannicus, as it was a weekend there was plenty of argy bargy going on, so I got my shots and we cleared off. It was still great though, lovely to see them.

[David M]

Loving it, Bugboy! There's nothing like a britannicus Swallowtail to get the Aurelian heart pulsing!

[Pauline]

Fantastic in-flight images of a butterfly I long to see

[bugboy]

Thank you everyone, it really was a dream come true to see this magnificent insect

Very sad to learn about Dr Martin Georges untimely passing, lets hope his legacy lives on for many years to come in the fens. Quite a few ancient cultures believed a butterfly to represent the soul of the dead, a particularly poignant belief in this case

Norfolk day 2, 11/6/16 (part 2)

So where do I go after that, for me it probably wasn’t going to get any better. Back at the visitor centre there was just a Red Admiral was dining,

So I wandered over to the meadow. A few Swallowtails were lazily fluttering and floating around, occasionally stopping to feed on the Ragged Robin, of which there was a lot in flower, but I only got a few fly bys this time, they never stopped close by but I enjoyed watching them through binoculars .

A Pheasant wandered by, something catching its eye in the sky.

And some beetles were having a bit of a party on the edge of one of the ditches.

I met up with my friend again and suggested one more wander to the hotspots would be a fantastic idea! On the way I found a Buckthorn riddled with Brimstone caterpillars, and the odd egg

And a perfect male Speckled Wood

But no more Swallowtails appeared so we decided to move on to How Hill

The sun was actually peeking on occasion out now and I found a couple of Shieldbugs lurking on a fence post and a female Black-tailed Skimmer basked nearby.

Walking across a car park my friend grabbed me and excitedly pointed off to my right, a Swallowtail was basking on the gravel. It was quite flighty and I only managed the one shot before it flew off over the trees. Unfortunately, this was to be my last sighting of a Swallowtail .

We spent a couple of hours wandering the site, which as Mark Tutton promised, was much quieter than Strumpshaw.

A couple of other lifers here included this Froghopper

Cercopis vulnerata

And a Four-spotted Chaser dragonfly.

Even without Swallowtails it’s definitely worth a visit, very peaceful

[Wurzel]

A brilliant sequence of shots Bugboy I saw my first Swallowtail last August in Czech and it is a memory etched into my brain, they seem so exotic they look out of place

Have a goodun

Wurzel

[bugboy]

Cheers Wurzel, a week later and I'm still buzzing from finally seeing them

Norfolk day 3, 12/6/16

My last day in Norfolk and having well and truly used up all brownie points from my friend (plus taken a few in lieu) it was time for a slight change of scenery. I did half-heartedly suggest that perhaps an hour at Strumpshaw could be fitted in a few times but this was always met with a definite “NO”! In truth I probably wouldn't have seen any as the cloud was definitely thicker today with the occasional light shower.

My friend was set on seeing some wild Avocets so we drove along the coast to Cley Marshies where we spent a few hours watching waders and listening to Warblers. Avocets, Lapwing, Redshank, Shelduck and Sedge Warblers were the commonest birds.

Some of Avocet were sitting on nests, the first clutch seemingly long gone and running around on one of the mud flats we could just make out a pair of Little Ringed Plovers. There was also a very stroppy mother Shelduck, with nearly 20 chicks (I suspect they weren’t all hers) harassing a poor Avocet who was just trying to return to its mate sitting on the nest.

All in all a great 3 days watching nature in a beautiful part of England and I got to see Swallowtails after nearly 40 years of just looking admiringly at pictures of them !

[Goldie M]

Lovely photos Bugboy, I was at Hickling Broad last year and the Swallow Tails were along the path we walked
along because huge Thistles and many other flowers were growing there, all we had to do was to wait for them to arrive which they did all the time.
We visited How Hill with out success, so it's great you got to them and photograph them Goldie

[bugboy]

15 June, Silver Studs.

I was planning a quiet day in but a last minute change of heart (and what seemed like a reasonably nice day, relatively speaking) had me taking an afternoon trip into Surrey. I thought I’d check out Millerds SSB site on Fairmile Common. My usual SSB’s aren’t normally on the wing for another week or two so it would be nice to extend their flight period.

With absolutely impeccable timing, the moment I got off the train the sun went in and light drizzle began to fall and didn’t stop for the next hour or so as I walked across the Common to the spot noted in MIllerds PD, stopping here and there at the occasional pool to photograph any Damselflies or Dragonflies that I could find.

It was still raining when I got to the site but despite this it was warm enough for a couple of disturbed SSB's to readily take flight.
As I wandered around this small corner of Heathland and got my eye in I started noticing them before they saw me and in the end probably found around a dozen, all males and all photographed. Like the ones on Chobham Common I noticed that the ‘studds’ seemed to be an optional extra with some barely having a single scale to show. Occasionally the cloud would thin slightly and the odd wishful thinking one would open its wings

Also disturbed were a couple of these gorgeous moths, Beautiful Yellow Underwing Anarta myrtilli

Exploring further afield I walked across the road to the main part of Fairmile Common. Here I found nothing except more rain, the perma-drizzle became somewhat torrential and for 20 minutes I sheltered under some Oaks before deciding to make a move back to the train station, the rain really didn’t seem to be stopping anytime soon.
A couple of minutes later it had slowed to a drizzle again and the cloud began to thin so out came the camera again and continued my search for a female.

I’m glad I stayed a bit longer since I found a male who was very near the front of the queue when ‘studds’ were being handed out, probably one of the most well studded I’ve ever seen in fact and very fresh looking to boot .

The cloud continued to thin until for the first time all afternoon the sun actually appeared. Within only a few minutes the SSB’s all woke up and the heathland was alive with them. I would hazard a guess at over 20 were seen in the end.

Whilst stalking them I also came across this gloriously evil looking Robberfly, I think this is Eutolmus rufibarbis.

The sun also woke up a few females, I found 3 individuals in the end, one of whom was also finely studded

It looked set for a pleasantly sunny evening but sadly I had to make a move but just as I was leaving the Common I noticed a Ladybird that looked a bit different, turns out I’d found a Scarce 7-spot Ladybird Coccinella magnifica, a species with a strong association with Wood Ants of which several were crawling around nearby. Another 6 legged lifer for me

A great little spot for SSB's and a bit closer (therefore cheaper to get to) than Chobham Common, thanks for the tip MIllerd

[Wurzel]

Great shots of the Silver-studs Bugboy - I need to try and find me some of those

Have a goodun

Wurzel

[millerd]

Yes indeed, Buggy - lovely shots of the Silver-studs, especially the females, which have eluded me so far this year. It's a great little spot at Fairmile, isn't it.

Dave

[David M]

In spite of the conditions, you've done pretty well lately, Bugboy.

Not long to go before the Emperor season begins!

[bugboy]

Thanks Wurzel, just wait for a bit of light drizzle and they just sit around waiting for you

Yes indeed Millerd, it wont be my last visit I'm sure

Thanks David, I think a lot of it goes down to dogged determination and a luck ! Yes HIM season, hopefully they wont elude me like they did last year!

21st June, Walthamstow Marshes

Just a little wander around my local patch this afternoon. A pleasantly sunny morning at work promised much but in the end a rather overcast afternoon delivered relatively little.
First to appear was a rather tatty Holly Blue, looking down at me from up high.

I was hoping there would be a few Large Skippers about (I’d found 10 on my transect at work at lunchtime) but I only managed one sleepy male.

And unlike my last visit, I only found the one Common Blue, a lovely looking female though.

Today’s wanderings resolved a couple of unanswered questions from my previous visit. Firstly I confirmed that the unknown legume the Holly Blues were obsessing over and ovipositing on is indeed Goat’s-rue Galega officinalis and that the young vanessid caterpillars I found on the nettle are as I suspected Peacocks.

A few other bits and pieces were active despite the rather cloudy conditions. A Robberfly Leptogaster cylindrica

The moth near it was this which I suspect is Sitochroa verticalis

And this Bumblebee mimicking Hoverfly Volucella bombylans

A small patch of blue sky awoke my first Small Skipper of the year, who I followed around for a bit.

On the way back I nearly trod on a rather placid Red Admiral basking in the middle of the path. After a few standard shots I moved in for a some close-ups. The head on shot I thought was rather amusing, the positioning of her vestigial front legs looks like she has her arms folded and is glaring at me, “Leave me alone!”

Apart from a single GVW that was it today.