Thanks
Katrina, looks like you had another good day, and busy, four sites in one day!
Thanks
Wurzel, its still a bit of a stuttering season for me, one days full of butterflies and the next three are washouts! Those Hairstreaks barely had one streak between them!
Thanks
David, Dukes are always the lazy bums of the butterfly world, then when they do wake up they spend their short day picking fights with everything that moves, knacker themselves out, and end up going to bed early!
Thanks
Neil, it’s a bit frustrating to have to work so hard to see these spring butterflies so I’ve ben trying to make the most of them on the few good days I’ve had.
Hey
Goldie, they’re out there, just keep looking, might be an extended season for them this year, what with the weather we’re having.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
May 2023
Thursday 4th. The following day I decided to visit Bookham. The forecast, for what its worth these days, said intermittent cloud cover and sunny spells, perfect Orange-tip hunting weather and with its damp meadows and newly widened woodland rides, Bookham has a thriving population of them. The first one I found I disturbed after spending a bit of time with a resting GVW but as the day progressed it became clear that although there was plenty of cloud it was for the most part, the wrong type! It was the high thin cloud that just dims the sun slightly rather than blocking it so the Orange-tips were for the most part on the wing all day long.
The first Orange-tip was soon forgotten when a holly Blue showed up nearby. He was a fidgety little git, settling often but never long enough to get a shot off but I summoned my inner Millerd and finally managed to get him to sit still for his photoshoot.
Next up the only female Orange-tip I saw all day, whose rather large discoidal spot may well put her in the realm of
ab. macula-punctata, and then another Holly Blue, this one was undisturbable having found his own personal holy grail!
Orange-tips proved to be the most numerous butterfly of the day, perhaps 15 or so seen, and I did manage to pin down one male briefly as he made a pit stop.
This female Comma needs to sort herself out and stop scaring people like me. Ten years ago an orange butterfly falling out of an Elm could only really be a Comma, but nowadays it’s enough to give a butterflyer a heart attack!
Several Brimstone were about but like the OT’s the cloud cover did little to slow them down. This female was the only one who did in my presence.
I only saw the one Peacock all day but she was worthy of my attention, it’s not often you find one this fresh looking in May, even a female.
This fine example of the Speckled Wood fraternity is the first female I’ve seen this year.
I also came across this drab looking bird whilst trying to get a shot of one of the two Cuckoo active throughout the day. It’s a Garden Warbler, who’s somewhat ironic most notable diagnostic visual feature is it has basically non! It does however make up for its almost complete monochrome blandness with a lovely warbley song, to my ears indistinguishable from a Blackcap but nonetheless very tuneful.
Finally, a few pictures showing the new widened rides which last spring looked like a scene from the Somme. Now they look amazing, it’s good to see some excellent woodland management going on here, those rides are just crying out for some spring Fritillaries now. Before the clearance there would only be a few gaps in the canopy above these paths, the amount of Orange-tips along these paths has definitely increased as has the variety of wildflower species.
- On one of the log piles :-)
.
The vagaries of the weather and its forecasters continue to make the season hard work 
Some of those Greenstreaks seem to be mis-named as one some of them it's difficult to see a spot let alone a streak 
