So on the afternoon of
11th June, I headed up the M40 to Aston Rowant. In these times of diminished traffic it only took half an hour, but the blue skies that had lured me up that way were steadily encroached upon by cloud, and on the steady climb up to the top of the Chiltern ridge, the rain started. Luckily it wasn't all that much, so when I stepped out onto he hillside, things had brightened up again. To begin with, all I saw flying were Small Heaths and Meadow Browns (I could have stayed at home for those!
), but then a streak of orange from the bottom to the top of the slope announced the presence of a Dark Green Fritillary. Shortly afterwards, a tentative white fluttering resolved into a Marbled White. A brief burst of real sun produced a flash of electric blue - a worn male Adonis Blue.
I hadn't expected any of these to still be flying, and it was the only one I saw. Next was another orange flyby - smaller though this time, and a different shade. This turned out to be a Small Tortoiseshell, and a slightly unusual one at that.
It was quite pale, with little difference in colour between the main orange ground and the yellow patches. The two black forewing spots were blurred, one of them almost to the point of disappearance. It certainly looked different - and attractively so. I saw another one later on, which was rather more normal.
After concentrating on this quirky butterfly, I looked up to find the skies had darkened considerably, and by the time I returned to the car to shelter, it was raining quite hard. Of course, it then eased off and began to brighten once more. In fact, I was then treated to about an hour of mostly sunny skies, though the breeze had picked up, especially near the top of the slope. The good thing was that the sunshine brought out the DG Fritillaries from wherever they had been hiding, with nectaring a priority. I found one seemingly glued to a patch of thyme, completely engrossed and undisturbable.
Others sought out the large thistles by the path along the top of the hillside, regardless of the breeze.
Another in the same area preferred to bask on the ground, and seemed thoroughly more laid back. By its darker colouring and shorter, plumper abdomen, this appeared to be a female.
Having mostly seen females up north, where they are often a very different-looking butterfly to the males, I had forgotten that down here in the south they can be quite similar.
Returning home I found that there had been no sun at all to speak of, so my decision to head for the hills had worked out very well indeed.
Dave
Goldie 
Those Small Heaths are in very fine fettle 
). Thanks for the reminder as well - I've been trying to recall the name of the aberrant Red Admiral and was adamant to remember it and not just google it 
