Saturday 23rd May 2015 - Rodborough/Selsely Common
One of the most delightful days I have had in some while.
Finally, the sun shone, the wind dropped and temperatures soared.
Willrow and I spent a good 4 hours at Rodborough Common, near Stroud, Glos, before moving on to neighbouring Selsely Common to spend a further hour checking out the Duke habitat there.
The first thing that struck me was the phenomenal numbers of Brown Argus. Normally, you will see maybe one for every 5 or 6 Common Blues. Today it was easily the reverse, with Brown Argus probably notching a century plus!
Dingy Skippers were also numerous, with 60+ being seen, along with Small Heath with about 50.
Encouragingly though, Dukes of Burgundy were also seen in high numbers. We looked for them in the dips and hollows on the way from the car park to the fort and were already into double figures before moving to the sheltered 'crater' which seems to be their epicentre. We even clocked up another out in the open on the flat plain nectaring on cow parsely which was a real surprise:
In the hotspot, the grass had been well trodden down so quite a few fellow enthusiasts had obviously been there before us. Their efforts to get to the bottom of this steep hill would have been well rewarded, as there were probably a dozen or so different Dukes active there:
Here are a couple of the brightest individuals from the day:
Of course, this abnormally warm micro-climate is what attracts Adonis Blues at this northerly (for them) outpost. About a dozen were seen in total but none from anywhere else on the site. This male was in fine fettle save for the missing antenna:
Mating pair:
Nice female:
Over at Selsely Common, we found the largest concentration of Dukes of the entire day. I spent half an hour at the bottom of this dip and counted 21, whilst Willrow, who stayed an additional 20 minutes, was up around 30, all in a 200 yards stretch. It really was quite astonishing:
A couple of Small Blues were seen here to add to the singleton at Rodborough:
In total, between the two sites, 16 different species were seen. In addition to those mentioned above, we observed Common Blue, Large White, Small White, Green Veined White, Holly Blue, Peacock, Green Hairstreak, Speckled Wood, Brimstone (female) and Orange Tip (female).