Saturday 14th May - Denbies
I went to Denbies on Saturday - not just for the Adonis abs, I haven't seen one so far this year, and I missed the spring brood last year.
I did find some unusual specimens though. Of the 25/30 that I counted, I would say about 1 in 4 were abberant or/and deformed.
Abberant Adonis:
![IMG_9847.jpg (438.98 KiB) Viewed 370 times Normal on the upperside though](./files/thumb_6364_667248d097905ad7574f652d8f107d5a)
- Normal on the upperside though
The more I look at this one, it seems wrong. Could it be
polonus?
Normal Adonis:
Adonis Blues weren't the only species looking different to normal though:
While these two female Common Blues were noticably different in flight - excuse the poor photo, but the first one looked more like a male Silver Studded!
Sightings:
25 male Adonis Blue, 5 female
20 male Common Blue, 3 female
1 Green Hairstreak
3 Small Copper
1 Brown Argus
30+ Small Heath
3 Grizzled Skipper
15+ Dingy Skipper
5 Mother Shipton
5 Burnet Companion
Hundreds of Burnets, mostly 5 spot I think
Plus.......7 of these beauties, Clouded Buff. I'd never seen these before
The Small Heaths were particularly pugnacious, dueling with anything; Grizzled Skippers, Dingy Skippers, Adonis and Common Blues. The Dingy Skippers were past their best, pretty faded and a couple a light tan in colour.
Finally, on the way back to the car I spotted this basking Common Blue
One for Gibster:
I even had a fly past at one point!
To butterfly meadows, chalk downlands and leafy glades; to summers eternal.