9th April, Walthamstow Marshes
Well another day and another strole that turned quite epic in the end, 7 hours on my local patch and came home with well over 300 pics to go through
![Shocked :shock:](./images/smilies/icon_eek.gif)
It started off quietly, looking out the window when I woke up all I saw was grey clouds but a few hours later the sun had burned them off and not a cloud was to be seen. It was about 20 minutes before I saw my fisrt butterfly, rounding a corner I caught a glimpse of something Orange on a Blackthorn, first butterfly of the day:
20 seconds later a peacock appeared and shortly after that a Comma. They mostly stayed high up, any time they were tempted down a dog walker or jogger came past. nevertheless I hung around and was finally rewarded by a nice close encounter with the Comma:
A couple of Small whites also joined the blackthorn party but they too stayed high up so only managed a couple of long distance shots, better than nothing though
I wandered off with more Peacocks and Commas popping out here and there plus Small Whites patroling, possibly the same two I saw earlier.
A little later I came across a couple of Peacocks nectaring low down on blackthorn and took the oppurtunity to get some more closeups when my attention was distracted. A couple of Reed Buntings, attracted by a swarm of midges at the top of the bush, were flitting about only 10 or 15 feet away: Rarely have I been luckily enough to see them this close so snapped at them, and also a male chaffinch that joined in the feeding frenzy.
You can clearly see the midge swarm around the Chaffinch (or I really need to clean my lense!)
Back to the butterflies: I saw the familiar lemon yellow of a male Brimstone flitting between a cluster of Dandylions and took my chances at getting some closeups, I was quite shocked that I came away with 20 good pics of not usually the most approachable butterfly
I followed this Brimstone down the field until it stopped off at another patch of Dandylions where it joined a second male plus more Tortoiseshells, a Peacock and another couple of Small Whites. Today really was turning out rather good!
So I'd so far only seen male whites but in the distance I could see 3 white butterflies fluttering in a cluster, obviously a female was about, they never settled but managed a few in flight shots:
I actually surprised myself how in focus I got with them!
More wandering and more Tortoiseshells and Peacocks plus 1 rather tatty Red Admiral that didn't settle long enough to record on camera:
It was getting on now so making my way back home I turned into a small copse, 4 Peacock were busy fighting and feeding on Sallow catkins when out of the corner of my eye something dark flitted close to the ground:
My first of the year
A little further I heard a male Woodpecker drumming away, he was showing very well on a dead tree so managed some nice shots of him as well:
It wasn't until I got home and went through my pictures properly that I realised I actually had another 2015 first:
As you can see it was a Green Veined White female they were chasing, female Small Whites are obviously very thin on the ground currently and this GVW was probably regretting emerging so early, they really weren't getting the message at all!
Back to work tomorrow but a thoroughly good couple of days enjoying the lovely spring weather
![Smile :)](./images/smilies/icon_smile.gif)