Cheers Andrew
![Very Happy :D](./images/smilies/icon_biggrin.gif)
It was made all the more frustrating by the rapid improvement in the weather the following day...
Martin Down 13-05-2018
My skulking round the house and muttering hadn’t gone unnoticed hence why I was now motoring back towards Martin Down. What a difference a day makes indeed as today I was driving with windows down, sunglasses perched on my nose, right arm tanning as it rested on the window with the now obligatory Iron Maiden pumping out of the stereo! I had a feeling that today was going to be one of those golden spells where I would be surrounded by butterflies…
I started at Sillen’s Lane end and there was still dew on the grass looking like little beads of glass but already the butterflies were flying along the hedge with a couple of Brimstone patrolling by and a third still roosting, hanging from a twig within the hedge. One of the Brimstone stopped for a while on the path and angled its wings towards the sun, still a little bit cool? A Greenstreak stopped on the furthest branch out over the path just as I was about to enter the ‘tunnel’ so it would have been rude not to have taken a shot or two. Then it was onwards down through the ‘tunnel’ which is really sheltered and also is where the majority of my Martin Down Specklies originate from.
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Once in the tunnel there were a few more Greenstreaks thought they were hanging around up high and scrapping. There was also a lovely fresh Dingy looking very like a snuggly carpet, I love their subtle markings. My first ‘pair’ Specklies turned up a short way down the tunnel, well I say ‘pair’ but I don’t think that they were really together. They flew into view tumbling around and spiralling around each other in what I took to be courtship and then one of them just dropped like a stone onto the deck. The other flew round it a few times and then flew off. I took a few shots as it lay there ‘dead’ on the floor and then all of a sudden it resurrected and flew off. That’s one hell of a rebuff! There were also a few Specklies, each time I saw them they were in pairs apart from the very final one right at the far end which was looking forlornly out across the open grasslands.
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From the tunnel I broke out onto the grasslands at the edge of the hillfort and so took the path skirting round and made towards the Hotspot, the little hollow at the Dyke. Along the way there were more Dingies, Brimstones, a single Greenstreak and also the first few Grizzlies of the day. Over at the hotspot there were even more of the Skippers along with a Large and a Small White. I poured a coffee and set about enjoying the show as one species would fly in take nectar and then another butterfly would fly in, have a bit of a tussle and possibly replace the first. It was great to watch so many butterflies flying at once.
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Cheered immensely I moved on up the Dyke towards the halfway spot were another footpath crosses the Dyke. I strode up along the Dyke looking down along the length and watching even more Skippers and adding an Orange-tip to an ever growing day list. At the half way point I carried on a little further and here was another Greenstreak down on the deck and another on the end of the bushes. I paused a while back at the half way spot a watched what flew along the bisecting track, a bit like a smaller version of the tunnel. A male Brimstone was sitting minding its own business so I took a few shots and then a large fly cam and sat on his wings, he didn’t budge even a fraction, just sat there motionless. I suppose this is a survival strategy shown by ‘cryptically marked’ animals; remain still no matter what else the camo doesn’t work.
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I started to make my way back stopping every now and again for notable sightings, a gloriously marked Dingy, velveteen Grizzlie, a Small Tort, a Peacock and a Dingy feeding from an Orchid. As if in a dream I bumbled from one butterfly to the next and seemed to spend equal amounts of time staring down the viewfinder or staring into my notebook tallying up the sightings!
I was almost back at the car my head spinning as I tried to remember salient facts from the day ready to write my PD when I was distracted by a Holly Blue. As it flew along the hedge I chanced to look down and there was a miniscule dark butterfly in amongst the taller grasses at the foot of the hedge. My first Small Blue of the year. In between taking shots of this a noticed a second Peacock, another Greenstreak and a few more whites; what a monster of a morning!
After getting home I added up all of my sightings and no wonder I was buzzing:
B 26, LW 1, SW 7, GVW 6, OT 4, DS 15, GS 22, GH 21, SB 1, HB 1, ST 1, P 2, SpW 8
Have a goodun
Wurzel