At Work with the Smessex 04-07-2019
With the weather turning “Hot, hot, hot” I was a bit worried about whether a lunchtime trip would actually produce any actual photographs as the butterflies , I thought, would be turbo charged. However I headed out anyway keeping my eyes peeled on the walk therefor anything that might be of interest. I didn’t see anything until I actually got to the first overgrown part of the Pits. As I wandered through taking the same path that I’ve worn over all of my visits this year the Meadow Browns and Ringlets flew up from their hiding places in the grass and just as I was coming to the little patch of mown grass, a bit like a reverse oasis, a tiny sandy coloured blur shot out of the sward and something in my brain made me automatically switched me to ‘stalk’ mode. I think it was the fact that instead of the standard orange gold colour that suggest a Small this was a more sandy gold which in my mind suggest Essex. I followed it as it flew slightly panic-y across the open field and watched as it landed, relieved, on the edge of one of the margins. I got in a bit closer and then knelt down and sure enough there were the tell-tale ‘ink dabs’ – my first definitive Essex of 2019. I spent a bit of time with it reacquainting myself with the salient identification features; sandy coloured fringes, yellow gold ground colour, ink dabs, drum stick shaped antenna tips and smaller straight androconia.
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After this I wandered over to the large Bramble and checked it out but it was quite quiet for a change with only a single Large Skipper and 4 or 5 Smessex. The little patch on the other side where the vegetation is just recovering from a very intensive hair cut looked more lively with butterflies zipping between the flowers that grow in sparse clumps here. Amid the Meadow Browns and Ringlets a golden skipper stopped long enough for me to confirm it as a Small. Then a flying chequer board drifted in from the main field. Possibly the first Marbled White on the site (I can’t remember if I’ve recorded them in the past) made its appearance and then flew nonchalantly right by and carried on disappearing into the hedge on the far side of the Primary school.
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I realised that I would soon need to be in front of a class and so made my way back noting a total of 8 Smessex on the return journey – I’d loved to have stopped for longer to determine if there were more than the singleton Essex – maybe tomorrow…
Have a goodun
Wurzel