Aston Rowant and Oakley Wood 4th August 2007

[FlyByWire]

I joined Jack Harrison today in Oxfordshire looking for Silver Spotted Skippers and Brown Hairstreaks.

First stop Aston Rowant around 10pm. Started off cloudy, but despite that we soon found out first SSSkipper. As the sun came out it started to bask too before eventually warming up enough to fly off. Plenty of other butterflies including Brimstones, but not many Chalkhill Blues. My highlight was finding and photographing a courting pair. Shortly after that Jack found a mating pair of Meadow Browns too.

Species seen:
Large Skipper (a few)
Small Skipper (a few)
Silver Spotted Skipper (10+)
Chalkhill Blue (5-6 Males - I didn't see any but I think Jack spotted a Female)
Red Admiral
Brimstone (5-6? both sexes feeding)
Misc Whites
Gatekeeper
Marbled White (3-4)
Meadow Brown
Small Heath (5-6)
Speckled Wood (a few)

En route to Oakley Wood I saw a couple of Common Blues on the grass by the carpark at M40J8A service station.

Oakley Wood seemed rather quiet at first. We started on the road south of Hell Coppice but after finding nothing but a Meadow Brown re-based to the carpark West of Oakley Wood. Unfortunately we never saw any BH's although another person there has spotted some and shown us his pics (very nice!). We went where he had seen them but no luck. Lots of very fresh Brimstones feeding furiously - quite easy to photograph males and females. Plenty of Peacocks too.

Large Skipper
Small Skipper
A possible Dark Green Fritillary or two flying past very quickly.
Peacock (10's)
Brimstone (Maybe 20+ both sexes feeding)
Misc Whites
Gatekeeper
Meadow Brown
Ringlet (5-6)

OK Jack what did I miss?

Update 7:45pm: Some pics for you. These and more will go onto http://piccies.flybywire.org.uk/Butterf ... index.html eventually.

http://piccies.flybywire.org.uk/Butterf ... ppers1.jpg
http://piccies.flybywire.org.uk/Butterf ... ppers2.jpg
http://piccies.flybywire.org.uk/Butterf ... ppers3.jpg

Finally see if you can guess what this is:

http://piccies.flybywire.org.uk/Butterf ... loseup.jpg

-Mike

[Will]

Brimstone, To be sure!

[Dave McCormick]

Brimstone all the way. Pritty nice shot.