Haha, yea you may have to save a few of those for this diary
Wurzel, still got a couple of weeks worth of posts before I get to the LTB...
Thanks
Dave, that Hairstreak encounter was far more luck than anything but nice to have confirmation with my own eyes about their presence there.
August 2020
Thursday 20th. My first trip of the year to Newhaven Tidemills, just on the off chance of something blue with tails had hopped over the channel and was politely waiting for me. Well on that count a drew a blank, indeed due to a rather dank grey cloud that hung persistently overhead there was very little to be seen bar a few Whites (mostly Small as far as I could tell, one day I'll come across a
mannii here!), some Small Heath and a couple of Common blue who provided momentary excitement.
As usual here the birdlife also caught my attention, a flock of Curlew did a few circuits before vanishing into one of the fields nearby. This singleton appeared a few minutes later and seemed to be searching for the rest of the flock, circling and calling.
A juvenile Stonechat also posed rather well and I do like this shot I got with a couple of Whitethroat looking on.
A Reed Bunting also sat for me
A couple of hours of walking around willing the cloud cover to break got a little tedious after a while, especially since I could see blue sky not far away both east and west. Newhaven fort on the other side of the estuary seemed to be bathed in sun so I headed over there, knowing the location of a bit of BLEP there adding a bit of incentive to go exploring. The BLEP came up empty but further up the hill I found some Common Blues and Small Coppers. A male of the former posed rather well and one of the latter was particularly eye catching. I’m not sure what named ab it could be, it seems to have elements of several including
extensa,
kochi and
juncta which probably indicates those abs. are just variations on a theme. Still a striking individual nonetheless
![Smile :)](./images/smilies/icon_smile.gif)
.
It was still just after noon and I had a few options of where to spend the afternoon, plumping for Malling Down to see if the Adonis were out there.
With the sun out now it was really rather warm. Silver-spotted Skippers seemed to have had a good season here too, most of them looking a bit ropy now but the odd fresh specimen could be found. Overall though it was all a bit lacklustre here and I had to work hard to find some decent looking butterflies. There weren’t many Adonis around, and only I discovered a single female who had already been found by a male.
In my rambling I disturbed a Cloudie but only managed a few distant shots at dodgy angles. I did spend a bit of time following a female Meadow Brown around as she laid her eggs, ALWAYS with at least one blade of grass in the way!
Amongst the Chalkhills still flying I found one who looked to have reduced spotting on the underside
Other species present were a few old Brown Argus, one who looked to halfway to
artaxerxes with the underside spotting, and some more fresh Small Coppers of the standard model.