Bugboys mission

[David M]

That's a great sight to see two Brown Hairstreaks in such close proximity, Bugboy.

There's clearly life in the season yet!!

[bugboy]

It was indeed David, just a shame they didn't quite sit right to catch the sun but you can't have everything

21st August, Denbies & Bookham

Well that wasn’t very nice, a big windy storm thing arriving just in time for my weekend off! Thankfully today was significantly better than Saturday and since I have yet to find a second brood Adonis, I set off early to catch them (hopefully) waking up on Denbies. A fair bit of sun on the way promised much but a thick blanket of cloud arrived upon my arrival…

A couple of Brown Argus were active one of which made it into my first photograph of the day.

Meadow Browns were relatively plentiful, most of them looking very fresh. I'm convinced there are two distinct emergences of these, not double brooded but more something along the lines of what Speckled Woods do. Chalkhills were also about, all though looking rather faded and well past it. I seem to remember last year they outlived the Adonis second brood, doesn’t look like a repeat performance this year.

Next to be on the receiving end of my camera was a male Adonis. It was still too cloudy for basking but not for feeding.

Another lycid was next, a female Common Blue this time… still no basking though.

Small Heaths were also enjoying a third brood, lots of fresh individuals being disturbed by my footfall.

With thinning clouds and patches of blue sky my second Adonis did feel it was bright enough to open his wings and posed perfectly for me, perching on a sprig of Eyebright for some time .

A few Silver-spotted Skippers were about, looking a bit worn like the Chalkhills.

Approaching lunchtime a few more Adonis began to appear, encouraged out by the larger gaps in the clouds, although not many by any stretch of the imagination. By the time I left around noon I had probably only seen seven or eight, all males

A very pretty Common Blue was the last butterfly to be captured for posterity before leaving for an afternoon at Bookham.

An hour later I found myself wandering around the open scrub at Bookham Commons under some decent blue sky. I found, unfortunately, no Brown Hairstreaks though (although they were there as Millerds diary proves! )

A fresh Small Tortoiseshell gave me the run-around and only allowed the one record shot

And moving into the woods I found a Silver-washed Fritillary who had certainly lived his life to the full. There was still life in him, a passing female grabbed his attention for a while although she was able to lose him with relative ease .

My White Admirals caterpillars this year have been vanishing at a rate of knots, with just one out of five still alive on my last visit. Today there were none. I searched around some other areas but all I found was one more abandoned platform. I think WA had a terrible year this year, they certainly seemed much less numerous than last year here and I heard similar comments when I visited Fermyn.

Returning to Brown Hairstreak territory for one last prowl before home, a few Common Blues were active and so were some Small Coppers, three in total although one escaped my camera.

[millerd]

I'm glad you caught up with the Adonis even if the second trip remained lacking in Hairstreaks, Buggy. I certainly didn't see any Fritillaries down at Bookham, mind, even worn ones!

Dave

[bugboy]

Yes I wasn't expecting to see any Fritillaries today!

I did see one other butterfly today which is something of a landmark for me. As I was leaving a male Clouded Yellow was manically flying around some Fleabane. He never settled, hormones obviously ruling his mind, but his presence means I've seen 50 species this year! I never set out to see that many this year. Not bad for a nutter that gets everywhere using public transport (and the odd lift from fellow butterfly nuts)!

[Goldie M]

Well done Buggy, I envy you the Adonis and 50 species is great Goldie

[Wurzel]

That's great going Bugboy congrats on an great tally:D

Have a goodun

Wurzel

[bugboy]

24th August

So where to go on the hottest day of the year so far? I had two species in mind, some more Brown Hairstreaks and Clouded Yellows, both of which had been seen very recently at my home from home, Bookham Commons but I decided to give Steyning another go and then go to the coast, where it would hopefully be a few degrees cooler, for the Yellows.

Armed with the knowledge that google lies occasionally, getting to Steyning was a relative breeze this time and walking up to the hotspot who should I fine camped out in the shade of a tree, Trevor. It was around 10.30 and for the next 2 hours we stalked up and down the hedge, taking the occasional break from the almost unbearable heat under the tree, but not a single Hairstreak was seen. At best we had a couple of possible flybys. I could see what Neil Hulme was saying about all the nibbled Blackthorn, hopefully this is easily rectified. Not much else was active but what was flying wasn’t going to settle, including a male Clouded Yellow going at the usual warp factor 9.

By 12.30 I decided to call it a day here, possibly it was just too hot for them, it was certainly getting too hot for me!

My next destination was Tide Mills, a familiar spot for me and easy enough to get to and according to Trevor, good numbers of Cloudies again this year. I took my time getting there, no point in trying for pictures mid-afternoon and arrived around 4. Small Whites were very numerous, particularly around the Everlasting Peas. Small Heaths were also numerous on the rabbit cropped grass and Common Blues were, well verging on common!

My first Cloudie was a female who seemed to be stuck between looking for somewhere to roost and a bit of last minute basking but she was most inconsiderate to settling suitably for me, dithering here and there before buggering off over a hill.

I found another one, a male this time who was obsessed with a patch of Red Valerian, almost perfect except it was on a very steep slope leading down into the water! Still it’s not often you can find a male who’s not going at a hundred miles an hour so I stuck with him and got myself a few shots, just a shame about all the bloody grass stems.

After another male appeared and they both went their separate ways after a small tussle I wandered off to find a very excited Common Blue, he’d found a female and was doing his level best to impress, I was impressed at his attempts! They remained attempts though, he didn’t get anywhere with her.

The only thing I was surprised to be absent were Small Coppers, there were a fair few here last year?

[trevor]

Good to see you had success at Tide Mills, Paul. Your camera catches the odd glimpse
of that lovely Clouded Yellow upperside very well.
I went straight home after Steyning, and melted in the garden.

All the best,
Trevor.

[Wurzel]

Great stuff there Bugboy If 2015 was the 'year of the annoying wind' I think 2016 is the 'year of the grass stem'

Have a goodun

Wurzel

[millerd]

Nice to see you found more Clouded Yellows, Buggy. Pretty well my last target for the year, though I have seen one relatively briefly. Congratulations on the 50 for the year too - not easy by public transport, so extra points there definitely.

Dave

[bugboy]

Yup Trevor, a little consolation prize to the complete lack of Brown Hairstreaks that morning

Grass stems, Wurzel......

Thanks Millerd, been a pretty good year for me

30th August

I've not been on my local patch for a good few weeks now, so I thought I'd have a wander there this afternoon on my half day from work was long overdue. It's been pretty barren as far as butterflies are concerned on previous outings and I was disappointed to find things hadn't really improved. Whites were reasonably commonplace, not settling for me though in the heat of the afternoon but apart from them butterflies were rather hard to come by. In the course of about 2 hours I disturbed a single Comma who vanished into a bramble thicket, about half a dozen Meadow Browns, a single male Common Blue and a Small Copper. The Copper was the only one that was willing to be photographed although it was trying to stay cool for the most part, so todays post is mostly in the style of Hoggers

Staying cool

still staying cool

staying cool and living dangerously with a toe in a spiders web

staying cool and looking good!

time to catch a few rays

Turns out he was a rather attractive, strongly marked animal!

[bugboy]

31st August, Bookham Commons

The forecast today was for sunny morning and clouding over by lunchtime so I decided to kill a few hours at Bookham today, not after anything in particular (although a late season Brown Hairstreak would be nice!)
First to fly into view was a faded Small Copper, followed 10 minutes later by a rather fresher boy.

The biggest surprise of the day was a web of Peacock larvae, looking to be about to leave their penultimate instar, a second generation perhaps? Certainly very late for a first batch!

A few meadow Browns were still about in varying states of wear and tear, and a nice fresh female Speckled Wood posed for me.

It didn’t brighten up as much as I was lead to believe and there weren’t too many butterflies to catch my eye so I turned my attentions to the various Hoverflies I was seeing.

Sphaerophoria scripta male

Eupeodes latifasciatus

Helophilus pendulus

Syrphus sp.

Eristalis arbustorum

Platycheirus scutatus

As it was getting close to lunch things began to get brighter, a few whites started showing up, a couple more Coppers and a Common Blue caught my attention

and then a proper little stunner of a Painted Lady appeared. She initially whizzed by but a few minutes later I found her feeding, and to use a Wurzelism, she was ‘fresh out of the box’! A gorgeous deep, rich orange with that lush pink blush of a fresh animal.

I had planned other things for the supposedly cloudy afternoon but, rather annoyingly, if anything it seemed to brighten up on my trip back into London. Oh well, weekend off, hopefully it will stay warm for a few more days at least!

[millerd]

They must be second brood Peacocks, Buggy. Far too late to be anything else. With luck, the weather will hold long enough for them to become adults and feed up enough to hibernate. I found some a few years back, but slightly earlier and the butterflies emerged in the first week of September. Maybe the warm dry and sunny August (in the south at least) has caused this.

Dave

[Goldie M]

Hi! Buggy, I hope you see those Peacocks flying

I'm just catching up on posts and I must say those Adonis Blues you posted ( August 21st really caught their lovely Blue colour,) Goldie

[Wurzel]

A 'Wurzelism'...I like that That Painted Lady is a cracker

Have a goodun

Wurzel

[bugboy]

Yea, you're almost certainly right Millerd, I can't see how any Peacocks could have survived that long to lay! They need to hurry up Goldie, there's plenty of Fleabane to fatten up on at the moment but that wont last much longer and there's precious little else to feed on at this time of year.

Thanks Wurzel, there's a few Wurzelism's in my vocabulary now

3rd September, Coppers and Specklies

Up until this morning, today had seemed to be a bit of a washout, but then this morning’s forecast said the rain wouldn’t get to my part of the world until quite late in the day. My well-deserved lay in meant that staying local was the only option and since I haven’t been to Epping forest since the spring, that was the destination of choice. I can remember a day last September made up primarily of Speckled Woods and Small Coppers here and I fully expected today would be of similar lepidopteran fare.

It didn’t take long for the first Specklie to show up, a fresh female quickly followed by a few males battling over a sunny glade.

They continued to turn up quite regularly as I made my way to the meadow where I found the Coppers last year. Again it didn’t take long for my target to turn up, a little glittering Copper getting buffeted as he tried to bask and feed in the blustery breeze.

A stones throw from him I found another two feeding. As I approached, hoping to get them both in frame one flew up, quickly attracting the attention of the other and I watched as they alighted and started to flirt. I wasn’t able to get a clear shot since the female was leading him a dance through the Ragwort flower head. Although she didn’t seem to be giving him the heave-ho, I was quite surprised when he lost interest after only a short while leaving me with her.

He hadn’t gone far though and I disturbed him a short while later, looking very dashing sporting his fine set of blue badges in the sun!

3 Small Coppers seen in one place outside Dungerness, almost unheard of these days!

Back into the wood more Specklies showed up, it’s good to find they have recovered well after their disastrous spring round here.

The only other species seen were a few female Meadow Browns and a Red Admiral flyby.

Only an hour out today (it clouded over by 1pm) but satisfying nonetheless.

[Katrina]

Great work with the Coppers, I have been missing them this year. Love the first Copper shot, it looks like a movie ending where it is about to fly off into the sunset.

[bugboy]

Thanks Katrina, I've not seen many this year but like last year they seem to have picked up a bit late in the season in some of my regular haunts. When I do find one though I tend to make the most of them!

[Paul Harfield]

Hi Bugboy
Nice to see you have found some Small Copper action . Like you I have not seen many this year, but I have actually tripled my Small Copper count for the year in the last 5 days . Nice selection of Hoverflies as well

[Wurzel]

Three Small Coppers You'll be giving Hoggers a run for his money at this rate Lovely series of shots - especially the final Blue Badger

Have a goodun

Wurzel