Thanks for the comments Goldie, David and Wurzel and apologies for the late reply. We returned late yesterday from a few days away down south and I have a bit of catching up to do now.
Wednesday 10th May – Heading down to Emsworth.
Last Wednesday (10th May) we set out to spend a few days down in Emsworth visiting our daughter Sarah and the grandkids, this time trying a different B&B just to vary our options. On the way down the M40 and A34 we passed though all sorts of weather, from nice sunny spells to dark clouds and heavy showers, arriving at our daughters at 1.30pm in another spell of rain.
A bit later we went to check into our B&B and after unpacking and settling in, the skies cleared into a nice late afternoon so I popped up the road to Rowlands Castle and had a quick walk into Stansted Forest. I didn’t go far as it was now gone 5.00pm but I still managed to see a couple of Orange-tips and a Peacock before I headed back.
Thursday 11th May.
The forecast for Thursday was saying that early clouds would clear a bit to leave some sunny spells in the morning before rain came in for the afternoon so I decided to make the most of this and head back to Rowlands Castle and have a longer look in Stansted Forest.
Mark Tutton had very kindly sent me details of a couple of locations here where he had seen Pearl-bordered Fritillaries last year so I headed for the closest location where he had said to look out for a recently coppiced area and soon found it. As I approached this spot I noticed a lot of bugle along the side of the ride and with the time being just after 09.30am and with the clouds beginning to break up a bit I decided to stake this spot out for a bit to see if any Pearl-bordered Fritillaries were attracted here to fuel up for the day.
This proved to be a good plan as within a couple of minutes I spotted the first PBF skimming towards me. During the next hour or so I wandered back and forth along this section of ride and ended up seeing half a dozen different PBFs flying out of the nearby coppiced area to the bugle along here. With plenty of clouds passing over they also settled frequently to bask which gave me some good photo opportunities.
![Stansted Forest 11.05.2023 0061 resize.JPG (723.19 KiB) Viewed 12202 times Pearl-bordered Fritillary - Stansted Forest 11.05.2023](./files/thumb_10101_4d7f2709ca7e83866b59df0d760661ba)
- Pearl-bordered Fritillary - Stansted Forest 11.05.2023
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- Pearl-bordered Fritillary - Stansted Forest 11.05.2023
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- Pearl-bordered Fritillary - Stansted Forest 11.05.2023
![Stansted Forest 11.05.2023 0541 resize.JPG (608.84 KiB) Viewed 12202 times Pearl-bordered Fritillary - Stansted Forest 11.05.2023](./files/thumb_10101_a8a04f5582d89e144f52a9326c5c9d7f)
- Pearl-bordered Fritillary - Stansted Forest 11.05.2023
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- Pearl-bordered Fritillary - Stansted Forest 11.05.2023
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- Pearl-bordered Fritillary - Stansted Forest 11.05.2023
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- Pearl-bordered Fritillary - Stansted Forest 11.05.2023
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- Pearl-bordered Fritillary - Stansted Forest 11.05.2023
At one point I spotted a larger pale orange butterfly and my heart skipped a beat for a moment until I realised that it was a Painted Lady, my first for the year.
![Stansted Forest 11.05.2023 0441 resize.JPG (657.47 KiB) Viewed 12202 times Painted Lady - Stansted Forest 11.05.2023](./files/thumb_10101_b9fcf7940949e91f31f15aaa8c32ba6f)
- Painted Lady - Stansted Forest 11.05.2023
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- Painted Lady - Stansted Forest 11.05.2023
I also saw quite a few Speckled Yellow Moths along here and actually managed a couple of shots of these normally very flighty day flyers.
![Stansted Forest 11.05.2023 0861 resize.JPG (549.5 KiB) Viewed 12202 times Speckled Yellow - Stansted Forest 11.05.2023](./files/thumb_10101_194e57d61a60667fbe3c26b0210775da)
- Speckled Yellow - Stansted Forest 11.05.2023
Also seen before I headed back to Jane were a couple of Orange-tips and a single Green-veined White.
With the grandkids at school and Sarah spending a few hours working from home, we then popped into Emsworth for a wander around the harbour and to have a coffee. The threatened rain had not arrived and so Jane said she would like to go to Stansted Park to have a look at the garden centre and farm shop there. While Jane was busy wandering around here I took the opportunity to pace it out back to where I had been in the morning, mostly out of curiosity as to how long it would take me from this side of the forest and found it took about 5 minutes longer than it had taken me from the Rowland Castle end.
On the way I spotted some dark clouds on the horizon but fortunately they looked like they were passing us by rather than heading for us.
On the way up the ride towards the spot where I had been earlier I saw a couple each of Orange-tips and Brimstones, all very active on what had become a warm afternoon.
I also spotted a Grizzled Skipper that settled in front of me giving me the chance of a quick photo before I lost sight of him.
![Stansted Forest 11.05.2023 1621 resize.JPG (757.07 KiB) Viewed 12202 times Grizzled Skipper - Stansted Forest 11.05.2023](./files/thumb_10101_efc103d14d2385e260c816a334266d5f)
- Grizzled Skipper - Stansted Forest 11.05.2023
Arriving at the stretch where I had seen the PBFs earlier it soon became apparent that they had mostly dispersed after feeding up but I did manage to spot a couple flying between the bugle and the coppiced area on the other side of the ride.
![Stansted Forest 11.05.2023 1751 resize.JPG (565.63 KiB) Viewed 12202 times Pearl-bordered Fritillary - Stansted Forest 11.05.2023](./files/thumb_10101_fd1b9d044e59442ce93599c1d3f7b9ad)
- Pearl-bordered Fritillary - Stansted Forest 11.05.2023
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- Pearl-bordered Fritillary - Stansted Forest 11.05.2023
Circling back through this coppiced area produced a few more but they were far more active than they had been earlier.
As I started to head back along the ride, I spotted a number of Green Tiger Beetles, including a couple of pairs in cop, something that I have never seen with these before. Mind you I don’t have these locally, the nearest place that I have seen them before being the Wyre Forest in Worcestershire. I also noticed that they varied quite a bit in their shade of green.
![Stansted Forest 11.05.2023 1821 resize.JPG (864.49 KiB) Viewed 12202 times Green Tiger Beetles - Stansted Forest 11.05.2023](./files/thumb_10101_3883dab3ff5e3c9ec2c26c1a4c968391)
- Green Tiger Beetles - Stansted Forest 11.05.2023
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- Green Tiger Beetles - Stansted Forest 11.05.2023
![Stansted Forest 11.05.2023 1921 resize.JPG (903.26 KiB) Viewed 12202 times Green Tiger Beetles - Stansted Forest 11.05.2023](./files/thumb_10101_decfa9665fdae95e0237f542f3884f22)
- Green Tiger Beetles - Stansted Forest 11.05.2023
On the way back I heard a couple of distant rumbles of thunder but the black clouds didn’t come any closer and in the end we never did get any rain.
Jane and Sarah had plans to go shopping the next day so…
To be continued.
Neil.