www.ukbutterflies.co.uk

Thanks Essex, always good to pop into your county around mid-June, always plenty to see and enjoy
Yes David, I count myself very lucky to have such an amenable colony of WLH within easy reach
Thanks Wurzel. My luck has been even worse for the the big purple one. I've missed two groundings at Bookham by minutes, been in the wrong place at the wrong time and both times found out whilst browsing Facebook waiting for my train home . Today I was about 2 minutes away and had I turned right rather than left I'm sure I would have come home with a camera full of purple!
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June 2021

Saturday the 26th. Time for one of my annual long distant trips across the country. Large Blues had been on the wing for a few weeks but the weather had scuppered my previous travel ideas. As usual, long distance travel means advance booking on a weekend to make it affordable, so I was left with a week of watching the weather people guessing what I was going to get in Gloucestershire, cloud with sunny spells and a threat of rain was what I got, which considering the summer that we’d had up to this point, I couldn’t really complain about.

My first place to explore was a new site for me, Rodborough Common where the Large Blue had recently been introduced, or at least its introduction had been made public. I wasn’t prepared for the long slog up from the station, Stroud being centred in a bit of a valley and the Common being a rather large ‘hill’ overlooking it to the south. I was very glad it wasn’t a hot day! The ‘Bowl’ where the Blues can be found is aptly named as the pictures show but overall the site seemed to be suffering a bad case of the June gap. I spent a couple of hours exploring the hillside but the only butterflies to start with were a few Ringlets, Marbled White and Meadow Brown, mostly looking rather fresh with the first two species also marking their season debut for me. The Orchids did put on a good show too. Eventually I caught site of something deep blue and I finally managed to tick off the Large Blue although one somewhat passed its best. I did think I managed a second one later on but closer inspection at home that evening found it to be a worn female Common Blue. I did manage a couple of aged Adonis Blue and a few more Common Blues but as I was leaving to put plan B into action, a fourth species made its season debut for me. A surprisingly relaxed Dark Green Fritillary settled near the path I was walking along. Plan B was a return to my more usual journey in this neck of the woods, hopping on the bus to Sapperton to see what was flying at Daneway. Between getting off the bus and arriving on site I got distracted by a beautiful Small Tortoiseshell, I mean, how can anyone possibly walk past such a thing! I was on site for no more than five minutes when I heard a distant west country call of “it’s a Bugboy”. Walking along towards me came a Lesser-spotted Wurzel and a Greater Philzoid (or is that a Greater Wurzel and Lesser-spotted Philzoid, I always get muddled ). We didn’t have long to chat, I think Wurzel was under strict orders to be somewhere else that afternoon, but it was good to catch up if only briefly, and I was filled in with word of half a dozen or so Large Blues to be found at the far end of the site.

A bit of wandering did indeed turn up a few Large Blues, no doubt the very same ones seen by Wurzel and Phil that morning, mostly somewhat aged; however the best was very much saved to last. I disturbed one which flew down the slope, over a lady’s head and settled in some grass behind her. I scampered down as fast as I could whilst trying to keep an eye on the area where it had landed so it didn’t escape. The lady upon seeing me casually asked if I’d seen any Large Blues. I pointed out that one had just flown over her head and it only took a quick search of the area where it had gone down to find it, a pristine female, almost certainly just hours old. It had unfortunately clouded over quite a bit so getting open wing shots took a lot of patience, and during that time she garnered quite a fan club! It was worth the wait though . Another DGF and some more Tortoiseshells playing in the evening sun as I was waiting for my bus back to Stroud completed a very good afternoon.

Good to see you (although very briefly - gotta keep banking those extra Brownie points ) and good to see that you got onto the Large Blues at the end Bugboy - she was definitely worth the wait Maybe see you about a week and half from now over at Shipton? If the Brostreaks are like everything else they could be later this year - I mean Alners Gorse most years has usually thrown up a couple by now yet this year nada so far

Have a goodun and stay safe

Wurzel

Fair play for your efforts, Paul. That was a marathon day!

I know Rodborough well, and that climb from Stroud up to the common is 2nd gear in a car!!

Good that you got a pristine female to reward you for your exertions. She's a real beauty.

I agree the large blue is a beauty . Impressed by all your travelling.

That was a trip and a half Paul, especially by train and shankses.
The most unusual form of transport to a butterfly site must be by tram for Hutchinsons Bank.
It doesn't matter how far we travel we're bound to bump into someone we know from our small(ish) community.

A great and interesting report, and of course some for the Large Blues, and hard won at that!.

Stay well,
Trevor.

That splendid female Large Blue must have made the trip 100% wotrhwhile, Buggy. What a beautiful insect, deserving of every one of those shots. Strangely though, that worn male somewhat resembles the unusual male blue I posted from Denbies not long ago. download/file.php?id=185203&mode=view
Surely not...
Curious that you encountered the Southern Philzoid - I had a sighting of the Northern Philzoid at the start of July!

Cheers,

Dave

Thanks for all the comments, she was indeed worth all the travelling and walking. Hopefully we can safely rule out a phantom Large Blue dumper Dave
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June 2021

Monday the 28th. I’d barely been to Bookham so far this year, lockdown meant no Hairstreak egg hunts or keeping an eye on any WA cats over the winter. Today was another day waiting for summer to arrive and was mostly a rather grey, damp affair but it did look like it might just be warm enough for some of the less fussy species to be active.

It didn’t take me long to find some life. Apart from the Orange-tips I’d reared, I hadn’t found a single OT caterpillar so far this year. Like a cluster of buses, that detail changed drastically with about a dozen found in two clusters, ranging from 3rd to 5th instar as far as I could tell. A full month after my ones started pupating, it shows just how extended their flight period was this year, these ones must have been laid as mine were pupating. In amongst the first batch I also found what can only be described as a green, tear drop shaped blob! It is in fact a Hoverfly pupae (or more correctly puparium, flies pupate inside their final larval skin). As I waited for the temperature to rise enough for some activity, I killed time by searching (unsuccessfully) for White Admiral pupae. All I found were dead, wet leaves that were cleverly camouflaged to look just like WA pupae! It took to around 11.30, and sheltering from on and off drizzle before I found something flying, my first White Admirals of the year. Being denizens of shadier areas of the woodland, cloudy skies don’t bother them and an occasional thinning of the cloud brought them to life and kept them going through more periods of light drizzle. They were definitely out in good numbers here, the cool wet spring obviously providing the caterpillars with ideal conditions to grow amongst lush Honeysuckle growth whilst being protected from the worst of the April frosts deep in the wood. Some of them had clearly been around for more than 24 hours judging by the state of them, but most were still in possession of complete wings. After lunch it had warmed enough for the first Silver-washed Fritillary to also come out and play, just two although I'm sure others were lurking elsewhere. As I was leaving the cloud finally started to clear and a few Small Skipper were dotted around posing irresistibly A pretty decent haul despite the weathers best attempts to ruin my day

Cracking White Admirals Bugboy - I've really struggled with them this year - after visiting a number of sites I've only encountered about four Itcomes to something when you see almost as many Purple Emperors as White Admirals

Have a goodun and stay safe

Wurzel

Thanks Wurzel. That’s actually surprised me, there’s certainly be no shortage of White Admirals in the woods I visit, in fact I’d say they’ve had one of the best years since I got back into butterflying!
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June 2021

Not a great deal to say about Tuesday the 29th other than is was significantly damper than the previous day. During a dry spell I was tempted out to Epping Forest, primarily to look for some Ringlets and perhaps a few abs. I did find a few but not many. The highlight were my first hutchinsoni Comma’s but after getting caught in a second heavy, prolonged shower I decided to call it a day after a couple of hours. The weather people were predicting better weather would arrive by my third week of my holiday, I wasn’t going to be holding my breath though .

Some great shots and posts in your diary since my last reply Particularly like the lovely female Large Blue at Rodborough

Thanks Max, she was a beaut!

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July 2021

Thursday the 1st was a two-pronged attempt to get the most out of yet another mostly grey summers day. First it was off to Fairmile Common to catch up with the Silver-studded Blues there. I knew they’d already been on the wing for a while so I figured I’d better get my skates on before they all became pale shadows of their former selves. I needn’t have worried though, there was still plenty of good conditioned ones in amongst some rather weather worn. A mixture of thick and thin cloud and sunny spells kept them approachable and provided me with a nice variety of poses . As ever, the females tended to possess the greater share of the bling as this mating pair show. There’s generally not much on the wing in their Surrey heathland strongholds during their flight period and today was no different, the only other species I found was a single Small Copper, the first of the coming second brood most likely. On the way back to the station, walking through Esher and Oxshott commons, a few Meadow Brown and Ringlet were about and a mating pair of the former had to endure the attentions of a very determined interloper, here he is looking on just waiting to pounce ! The afternoon was spent at nearby Ashtead/Epsom commons, more of which will be in the next post.

Lovely Silver-studs Bugboy - one of my favorite mainly because of their penchant for Heathland. Looking forward to the next post, I have my suspicions about where its from

Have a goodun and stay safe

Wurzel

Thanks Wurzel, hopefully more than suspicions
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July 2021

Thursday the 1st continued, minus much of the mornings sun, walking around Ashtead and Epsom Commons. The lack of much sun made butterflies somewhat placid with mostly just browns flopping and Skippers buzzing around but once in a while it did poke out and a few SWF and WA materialised like magic to feed on the Bramble. I made my way to the Black Hairstreak hotspot and for the second time this year found myself searching for them under grey skies, at least this time it wasn’t raining! Of course being very much at the tail end of their season I wasn’t expecting a great deal but I was pleased to find two separate females, both attempting to find somewhere to lay eggs. I don’t think I actually saw an egg being laid but there was much oviposturing going on. Along with the Ringlets, Meadow Browns, Small and Large Skippers (I’m sure some Essex were also lurking somewhere), I came across a few more White-legged Damselfly, a surprisingly placid Burnet Companion and a slightly paler than normal Marbled White.

July 2021

Friday the 2nd was another two-pronged effort to make the most out of the lacklustre summer weather. Bookham was the first place to visit. Obviously booking these few weeks off was centred around the Purple Emperor flight season, little did anyone know we’d regressed a few decades, already halfway through my time off and still waiting for kick off!

Still, there’s plenty of other things to point a camera at at Bookham in the first days of July. Like my last visit, the White Admirals were very docile under the cloudy skies. Silver-washed Fritillary numbers had increased drastically with lots of males joining the WA on the bramble blossom. Ringlets, Meadow Browns, various Skippers and a glut of hutchinsoni Commas joined the showy woodland specialists but the Emperors (which were active today I later found out) failed to deign me with their presence. I did make a special effort to snap a Green-veined White, a veritable rarity in 2021! It wasn’t all bad on the purple front, a Purple Prince did allow close up shots as he basked under some Emperor master trees before fluttering off up into them . Most of the Orange-tip caterpillars I’d found last time had (hopefully) gone off to pupate, just a few were still munching on Garlic Mustard seed pods. I hung around until the middle of the afternoon before setting off for my second destination of the day as I wanted that particular target species to have calmed down a bit! Had I hung around under the master trees I probably would have caught sight of some of the first Emperors

For that b***dy male Purple Hairstreak !

Too much purple ! .

Definitely for the purple hairstreak

And a few more from me too for the Small Purple One!

Cheers,

Dave

Cracking shot of the Purple Prince (I'm using that from now on! ) Also good to see my suspicions confirmed I had meant totype something else but what came out was lucky word spaghetti Oh well...

Have a goodun and stay safe

Wurzel

Thanks for all the comments, I’d happily trade you one of my male Purple Princes for one of your Purple Princesses Trevor!
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July 2021

Friday the 2nd continued. The target species for the second part of the day inhabited nearby Box Hill, those crazy ginger bullets, Dark Green Fritillaries. It wasn’t the scorching hot day that for some lunatic reason I normally choose to chase them and there was a decent amount of cloud cover to further calm them down. One female was seen but gave me the slip but for once the males were reasonably approachable, and there were a lot of them, 40+, I’ve never seen so many! Like the Orange-tips in the spring I noticed a similar change in behaviour towards the coming and going off clouds. They would switch from searching for females to feeding as a cloud approached. When the cloud passed, they would go back to female hunting. The only other species to really catch my attention were a few male Marbled White, still early days here for them presumably.

July 2021
On Saturday the 3rd I only had the afternoon free so I went back into Essex for another audience with the WLH. It was yet another dull day with the risk of rain but as expected it didn’t put some of the braver Hairstreaks off, around half a dozen freshly minted females were sitting around (with the odd worn male), occasionally feeding during slightly brighter spells. With the weather being what it was there was little else around, a couple of Commas and a few skippers of assorted species were the only other butterflies found and when more persistent rain arrived I called it a day. Did some one say this was meant to be summer ?