Thanks, Trevor. Been a struggle round here with them too (only three so far).
Friday 14th May - Afternoon gamble.....
It's not often I venture out on a butterflying trip in the mid-afternoon, but the almost constant cloud over the last few days meant that when a break occurred today at around 2.30pm I had no other option.
Having seen only 3 butterflies (2 Wall Browns and a Small Copper) in the preceding 7 days, I trekked down to Cwm Ivy and Whiteford Burrows to check out what was about, arriving at 2.35.
In just over two hours, I saw the 'grand' total of 36 butterflies, but thankfully 10 of them were Common Blues (6) and Small Heaths (4), which I hadn't hitherto seen in 2021.
All the Common Blues were males:
The Small Heaths were tricky to pin down, and this was the best I could do:
Bizarre statistic….
Each year brings butterfly-related vagaries, but lately this one has developed into a situation where overall numbers are few yet species range can still be impressive.
So it was today, as the 36 individual butterflies I saw comprised a healthy 14 species.
The Common Blues and Small Heaths seen were new for the year to me, but a dozen others were recorded, although none exceeded 6 in number.
Walking down the path towards the site, my first butterflies were two Whites battling at the foot of the limestone hill. One was a Small White and the other was a male Green Veined White, who settled nicely on some bedstraw:
In the glade, another male basked invitingly:
Just the one male Holly Blue in this area, so it looks like the show is over for this spring:
However, I found a nice female visiting the unfurling hawthorn blossom just outside the glade:
A couple of Red Admirals were active in the glade too:
As I was walking out onto the dunes, this pristine Small Blue took a liking to my trousers:
A Small Copper was seen in this area too, whilst further along a single Brown Argus was spotted, along with this Dingy Skipper:
There were 2 male Orange Tips, 2 Large Whites and a Peacock, but the biggest surprise was when I was walking through this sheltered crater:
I was watching another Green Veined White when I suddenly saw a brown-coloured butterfly. My immediate thought was “That’s a hellishly early Meadow Brown”, but when the insect opened its wings, I was shocked to discover that it was a male Wall Brown; the first I have ever seen at this site.
Such was my stupor I didn’t think to get my camera out, and unfortunately it was soon disturbed by the Green Veined White which was still nearby. It flew towards the limestone slope so on my next visit I will have to yomp up the steep hill to find if there is a decent-sized colony here.
Amazingly, there were no Speckled Woods recorded, nor were there any Brimstones (although the latter aren’t generally too active in the late afternoon), so had I arrived earlier the species tally might have been 16, which would be excellent even in July.
