Wednesday 20th August
This being the second Wednesday that I had booked off work and with my lack of success in seeing any Brown Hairstreaks at Grafton Wood last week I decided to have another attempt today.
I left home about 10.00 and drove over, arriving and parking by the church at Grafton Flyford about an hour later. The morning had started off nice and sunny albeit with a bit of a nip in the air after a cold night, and by the time I arrived at Grafton some more cloud had built up with the sunny spells being warm but not lasting very long. At least the blustery wind of late had dropped with there being very little breeze today.
I walked across the fields and into the wood and then followed the main ride down to the southern end which is quite sheltered and where there has been some management of the blackthorn to encourage new growth. As with last week, Speckled Woods were everywhere along with some Meadow Browns and a few faded Gatekeepers and various whites.
Reaching the southern end of the wood I started scanning the Oaks and Ash and soon saw some Hairstreaks flitting about high up but which through my binoculars proved to be Purples, not Browns.
A few minutes later I was joined by a couple of fellow enthusiasts and together we scanned the trees and blackthorn. During one of the brief warm sunny spells we spotted a butterfly flying across the trees in front of us which we all thought was a Brown Hairstreak. It flew up into the trees before we got a really good look but it flew with the ‘jinking’ flight of a hairstreak and it was the right colour so on the principle of ‘if it walks like a duck and quacks like a duck, then it is a duck’ we agreed that it probably was one (a Brown Hairstreak that is, not a duck
).Just after that a Holly Blue settled and with a cloud blocking the sun stayed down for a while, not in the best place for photos being well into a large patch of brambles and unfortunately not opening its wings before flying off.
- Holly Blue - Grafton Wood 20.08.2014
Again, as with last week there were a fair few Common Blue and Brown Argus scattered about as well as a couple of worn Small Coppers.
- Common Blue - Grafton Wood 20.08.2014
- Common Blue - Grafton Wood 20.08.2014
- Brown Argus - Grafton Wood 20.08.2014
- Brown Argus - Grafton Wood 20.08.2014
Apparently the Brown Hairstreaks are slow to get going at Grafton this year and there is a bit of concern about the low number of sightings, in fact John told me he has only seen one so far, a male. It is possible the recent weather has held them back; August so far has been cool and cloudy and quite blustery after the remnants of Hurricane Bertha passed through and a northerly wind has brought quite cool conditions for the time of year.
John then went back to re-join the work party whilst Dave and myself had another look by the pond. We had already seen a couple of False Brown Hairstreaks (Gatekeepers) when both of us at the same time spotted what at first looked like another one land on a clump of Hemp Agrimony. Happily this one was the real thing
, a male Brown Hairstreak that stayed down for a few minutes before taking off and flying up into the Oaks behind us.- Brown Hairstreak - Grafton Wood 20.08.2014
- Brown Hairstreak - Grafton Wood 20.08.2014
- Brown Hairstreak - Grafton Wood 20.08.2014
I then took a slow walk back through the wood and with more clouds building up I called it a day and headed for home.
Bye for now,
Neil.
, between work and household/family stuff over the weekend I haven't had chance and then the bank holiday yesterday was miserable with rain all day so I caught up with more stuff around the house. Mind you it gave me a chance to build up some more brownie points which I hope to make use of next week when I will be down in Dorset again for a week and it even looks like the weather might settle down a bit for then, fingers crossed.
Those Hummingbird Hawk moth shots are stunners.
) whilst I had another little wander.