Thanks
Maximus, up until this point I'd never even seen them at a distance, but at this site they seem to come to you
Cheers
Wurzel. Top of my hitlist at the moment is still The Purple One, need to stake out a freshly laid dog poo I think!
Thanks
Neil, yes I couldn't believe how many there were, easily 20 or more
!
Cheers
Dave, If it wasn't for all the other butterflies around I would probably have left earlier and missed them, I suspect they come down late afternoon (and perhaps morning) to feed, probably spend the day up in the trees doing Hairstreaky things!
Bookham Common 7th July
Today’s weather was somewhat...well British for want of a better word. Even the forecast was confusing, the local one being somewhat different to the national one but I went out anyway, another wander round Bookham Common looking for The Purple One and perhaps the Little Purple One as well. Things seemed to be clearing up late morning and by 12 I was getting off the train. As I walked into one of the car parks a particularly dark cloud blackened the sky and it began to rain. Luckily it only lasted about 5 minutes, the blustery wind was blowing the clouds across the sky at a fair rate of knots. All in all though it didn’t seem too promising for what I was looking for.
Still you definitely don’t see it if you don’t look for it so as soon as the rain stopped I was off. When the sun came out the temperature soured and Small Skippers, Meadow Browns and Ringlets came out to play. A couple of Large Skippers were still active and I caught the occasional glimpse of a Silver Washed Frit and White Admiral searching for mates. I saw what was probably a Purple Hairstreak fluttering across a clearing from one Oak to another but couldn’t get a proper view to confirm
.
Odonata were also out in force again, a female Darter (Common or Ruddy, I couldn’t tell which) flew by and settled high up.
Common and Azure Damselflies were still everywhere and I got close enough to get a few snaps of a male Black-tailed Skimmer this time, showing us how he got his name.
It was some time before I got a butterfly picture though, dodging showers, but I eventually found a couple of SWF feeding on brambles, they were very active in the sun and didn’t settle very close but managed some half decent distance shots
Settling a bit closer but under a bracken leaf the dappled light made for an interesting image
I also got another lifer
, this time a Beautiful Demoiselle, living up to his name, sparkling beautifully in the sun!
After few more light showers and dark clouds the sun seemed to be coming out for longer periods, a few Blue-tailed Damselflies were out
and I managed to get a few shots of a feeding White Admiral. I would have been able to get closer ones as well had it not been for a Meadow Brown who is now regretting his interference, having been cursed for all eternity
! I watched helplessly as went gliding off.
A teneral (freshly emerged) damselfly landed near me, looking very gostly
too fresh to ID but could well have been one of these
- Azure Damselflies
Sometime after this I had another SWF encounter
who only decided to settle near me when the sun went in, forcing me to fiddle with the camera and lose shutter speed and depth of field just when I needed it, oh well.
At another clearing at the side of a path two WA were soaring around and occasionally settling. Again I couldn’t get close but at least I’m getting a few more pictures of them now which is better than nothing.
That was unfortunately that as the sun decided to have an early night and clouds took over. Looks like I’ll have to make another trip to break my Purple duck, oh well, tough life lol!