Last Saturday (9th) a trip to Abbotts wood, [part of the Alice Holt forest) drew a blank for my target species, the Purple Emperor. The sun struggled to put in an appearance of sufficient sustenance in the morning and by the afternoon it had well and truly clouded over. The journey wasn’t a total waste, (they never are to be fair) as I got to see White Admiral; Gatekeeper and Small Skipper all firsts for the year
. A male Broad-bodied Chaser Dragonfly was a pleasing addition too.
. More worrying though was the complete absence of Silver-washed Fritillary 
. One of the most pleasing sights in woodland at this time of the year is seeing the large male bright orange butterflies dripping down from height or quartering the rides looking for females, momentarily pausing to drink from bramble flowers or thistle heads. Moving onto Straits Inclosure improved matters, with eventually my first sightings of Silver-washed plus a few more White Admiral, Large White; Green-veined White; Red Admiral and (Smessex) skippers. Still no emperor though 
. ) so on Sunday 17th I made sure of an early start and a first port of call to Straits.Straits is starting to look like its ‘old self’ after the recent years of forestry commission activity left it looking in a bit of a state
. As I made my way along the main track (surprisingly one-one else around) I scanned the tree-tops and the ground but no sniff of an Emperor. My first butterfly turned out to be a female Silver-washed on top of a thistle head then later on at the observation tower junction by a large clump of flowering bramble, I was able to view more Silver-washed; White Admiral; Large and Green-veined White, Large; Small and (perhaps) Essex Skippers; Ringlet; Meadow Brown; Gatekeeper; Comma all dropping in and out of their ‘diner’.- Plenty of Small Skipper along the woodland rides
. As ever I stood there staring before reacting to raise my camera only to find it had gone. My first Emperor at last … or was it Perhaps it was just a large high-flying White Admiral …. yes, even Iris can be confused with something else when you haven’t had a good look. At that point the peace and quiet was interrupted by the noise of chattering from a party of Ramblers. As they passed by one of them stopped to have a chat before wishing me luck. It seemed to work because no sooner had they gone when an Emperor appeared again . This time if came low, flew around a telegraph pole and settled about 15ft up on the observation tower. No doubt about it this time. He was trying to get something out of the wood which presumably yielded little as he kept moving about to try different areas on the tower. The photos were taken from distance and do not show the purple nor are they anywhere near as good as others that have been shown on here, but I’m very pleased to have got them nonetheless . Soon after taking my pictures he left and then I saw another one (no nick in the wing) actually chasing a hawker dragonfly Species seen so far for the day were: - SWF; MB; R; SWd; MW; SSk; LSk; LW; GVW; PE; WA Cm and RA. No Lycaenids
The previous week at Abbotts I met a local enthusiast who said that Glanvilles were back at Wrecclesham (just down the road)
. Though too late for Glannies I decided to give it a look over. It crossed my mind that there might just be the chance remnants of Heath Fritillary colony which was another species release there back in 2012 I believe. Seeing Heaths would be an unexpected bonus and a chance to catch up to Wurzel, who’d stolen into the lead in our annual number of species ‘challenge’ per season 
(42 to 39 at last count (before my PE)).At Wrecclesham there were signs of some further development work. The fencing around the area was still as flimsy as previous but the road leading to the sandpit has been concreted over to take heavy vehicles and there were signs of the sandpit being further quarried and the lake partially filled: - all part of a plan to increase the capacity of the area for use as a landfill site
. Apparently this use for it was proposed back in 2002 and as expected met with resistance from locals who didn’t want the problems that come with having a landfill site on their doorstep. Bearing this in mind and the changes that have already occurred it seems crazy to have tried to start a colony of Glanville Fritillaries and latterly Heath Fritillaries on such a site? … but perhaps that was the intention, to try and find a means of warding off the development (I don’t know?) . It’s a shame because the Wrecclesham sandpit and surrounding area is a beautiful natural area if you can ignore the developer’s paraphernalia, and for a few years for me at least, was a reliable and fairly local site to go and see lots of butterflies, especially the Glanvilles 
.Anyway, to cut a long story short; No heaths were seen (as I expected tbh
). There were butterflies present; the usual suspects including Small White; (possibly) Essex Skipper and Small tortoiseshell, but again no Lycaenids .- Male Essex?
). Getting there always is tricky with the masses of cyclists in the area at this time of year. Presumably many were in practice for when they shut-down the Surrey roads on the 31st and the two wheelers take over
However, the hills on the zig-zag proved to be a hot-spot for the DGF. If only they would settle. All the ones I saw were males and they hugged the ground dropping periodically as if to alight but continually avoiding doing so. It was hard work following them. In the end a faded example did touch down and I was able to get these shots, the underside courtesy of some wind buffeting.
Phil
