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Friday 12th June was warm again, and a bit sunnier. The local walk was once again full of Meadow Browns and Small Heaths, but the other notable species was the Small Tortoiseshell with ten individuals seen. To those of you living in more favoured spots this probably doesn't sound much, but a count into double figures is worth noting down here these days! No sign yet of Essex Skippers, with those seen being definitely of the Small persuasion.After a bit of a gap, a new generation of Small Whites are appearing.A few new hutchinsoni Commas are around......and this one was seen within a metre or so of one of its forebears. There was no intereaction at all. However, the highlight of the walk was finding a Marbled White. They reappeared here in 2019 after a long gap since the previous sighting, and hopefully there will be more to come.In fact, having just attached and studied these photos, it appears that there were two different butterflies! (1) and (3) are the same, but (2) is not.

Dave

Lovely Small Tort shots, Dave. I would only get into double figures of
Small Torts, from East Sussex, if I added last years tally to this year's.
three seen this year so far.

Might see you today!
Trevor.

Struggling to keep up Dave but basically very envious of your DGF, great shot of the Dragonfly with butterfly (I think!) and I, too, have noticed a couple of ST with blue where the white should be. Have I forgotten anything? - probably

I learn from the thread, with some surprise, that Small Tortoiseshell are not commonplace and abundant everywhere. This really surprises me. I am learning something new every day.

There is definitely something unusual about that Small Tort Dave - it could be a named aberrant - it's not just the fine markings but also the ground colour that looks different to all of the other Small Torts that are about at the moment which are much darker

Have a goodun and stay safe

Wurzel

Cheers, Trevor - the Tortoiseshells are having a decent year so far round here, but still nothing like the numbers of ten years ago or so.

It's true, Otep - Small Tortoiseshells are no longer commonplace butterflies in parts of southern England. They have by no means disappeared, but gone are the days when dozens would gather on buddleia and other flowers at the end of the summer. In the Midlands and further north, they are doing better (Neil Freeman's diary illustrates this really well! ).

Thank you, Pauline. I was very pleased with the DGF from both Box Hill and Aston Rowant - they are delightful butterflies. Helped to pose nicely by the weather of course. Don't worry, I struggle to keep up as well - I tend to forget which order I've seen things and what happened where. Age and decrepitude in my case, no doubt.

I did wonder about that, Wurzel - maybe I'll pop it into a separate thread and seek opinions...

Saturday 13th June. More sunshine, at least initially, so I set off early down to Bookham to see if anything had joined the White Admirals I'd seen there on 2nd. Not as early as Philzoid it turned out, who had been there a good half hour before me looking in vain for emergent Purple Hairstreaks. We soon saw several White Admirals, and they turned up everywhere along the rides pausing occasionally to nectar on brambles, usually in some inaccessible or half-shaded spot. Aside from these, only a few Meadow Browns, Speckled Woods, Large Skippers and Commas were seen - no SWF, Ringlets or Small Skippers, nor any Hairstreaks. A selection of the main attraction here today:Having see all I suspected I was going to see, I headed off, leaving Phil to examine the clearwing lures he had strung around the woods. Good to see you once again, Phil!

Dave

You've cleaned up on those mid-summer species, Dave. Fresh Marbled Whites are a joy, but even they are eclipsed by fresh White Admiral.

Nice to see you got a good audience with DGFs, and I agree, that 'monochrome' Small Tortoiseshell is quite unusual.

Hi! Dave, lovely shots of the WA, I love to see them fly their so graceful, I hope I get the chance to see one this year Goldie

Cheers, David - interesting you should mention "monochrome" and also refer to Marbled Whites and White Admirals. In a world of colourful insects, two black-and-white ones really stand out!

Thank you, Goldie - I do hope you get the chance to see the Admirals, they are lovely to watch floating around the woods.

13th June (continued): From Bookham, it's only a short distance to Fairmile Common, and I was interested to see how the Silver-studded Blues were faring after the worries about the frosted heather. I'm pleased to say that things looked a lot better now, with a second flowering of the heather underway and as well as a good number of male butterflies there were also plenty of females. These can be hard work as they hardly stand out from the vegetation or the ground (they often sit on the latter) and there are small moths that mimic them in flight. However, I found enough to start looking at the surprising variation between individuals. This isn't helped by the way they change in appearance, sometimes substantially, with the amount and direction of the sunlight on them. The first two are the same butterfly...These next two are different individuals, but the orange lunules on both wings are virtually absent. The second of the two was very dark, looking almost black from some angles, and quite similar to a Small Blue female.Two others were more typical, with reasonably well-defined lunules.Finally, there was this one, which I wish I'd seen when it was fresher as even in its current state the blue spotting was striking.The undersides of those I looked at were remarkably similar to one another: this is the very dark one, but the others were pretty well the same.The males were generally looking a bit more tired than on my last visit, but a few were quite fresh.Not unexpectedly with so many females around, I also came across a mating pair. A fascinating visit, well worth dropping by again.

Dave

Hi! Dave that last shot is fantastic it shows their lovely colouring , just lovely Goldie

Many thanks again, Goldie! They are very attractively marked for certain.

There was still time on 13th June to nip down to the edge of Staines Moor - after all the last time I did this I found three Painted Ladies! Not so today - there were a few Small Skippers, a Meadow Brown or two and lots of Small Heaths, though it was by now after five. However, in the same spot as I'd found the Painted Ladies, I came upon a couple of Small Tortoiseshells indulging in mad circling courtship flights, stopping every so often to become better acquainted. They had two favoured settling points, one on a bridge where they were constantly disturbed by passing footfall......and another on a piece of log.Eventually they relinquished both and disappeared across the river, but were hotly pursued by a third Tortoiseshell - I don't know how that intervention went...

This of course bodes well for another generation before the end of the summer!

Dave

Your recent trips out have been rewarding.
Your first WA sighting was extremely early. A good variety of Silver Studs too.
Still, we have all things purple on our minds at the moment!.

Trevor.

Cracking set of reports as per usual Dave Really interesting to see the variation in those Silver Stud females - I'v not seen the darker forms before and that one with a line of blue scales on the hind wings - looks like it could be a totally different species Hopefully things Purple wise will pick up at the start of next week - we're due a mini heatwave

Have a goodun and stay safe

Wurzel

Yes, there have been several good days recently Trevor, and more to come. However, there is a growing sense of anticipation in the air, with a purple tinge to it...

Cheers, Wurzel - it was unusual to have so many female SSBs around in conditions that made them reasonably easy to study. Female blues of other species often provide some interesting variety, and it seems that this is true of Silver Studs as well. There is always some new angle to concentrate on.

Sunday 14th June. I headed down to Denbies today, with an early start in case the car park filled up. A good decision, as it was already mostly full when I arrived at 8am, though annoyingly a substantial number of those parked were cyclists with no intention of going out onto the slopes at all. The day was warm and a bit muggy, as early bright sunshine had deteriorated into cloud. However, with lightish winds and strong June sun through those clouds, the butterflies were not deterred from flying but were prompted to stop and bask more regularly - almost ideal.

This is an interesting time of year. It is a sort of hiatus before the throngs of blue butterflies appear in high summer, a time when the slopes belong to Satyrid species - Meadow Browns, Small Heaths and above all Marbled Whites. The latter species was ubiquitous, turning up in all parts of the hillside and in good numbers too.The Browns were also represented by the first couple of Ringlets I've seen this year - really difficult to approach despite the cloudy conditions.There were Skippers about too, a few Large ones along the hedgerows and out in the longer grass, good numbers of Small ones. Every single one I checked belonged to this species - no Essex were seen that I am aware of.The customary Small Tortoiseshell appeared......along with what looked like a very new Red Admiral.Out in the middle of part of the slope to the east of Steers Field, a patch of nettles harboured a large number of Peacock caterpillars. Usually when full grown they tend to disperse to some extent, but in this case the density was such that they remained crammed together. Despite this, there appeared to be enough food left in this patch to cater for their full development. Either a very large number of eggs were laid here, or the larval attrition rate in this group had been unusually low. Any small mammals discovering this little lot when they pupate will not be going hungry... To complete the visit (other than a welcome coffee from the refreshment van), as I plodded back up to the car park I almost fell over a new male Dark Green Fritillary nectaring on a knapweed. Another interesting day out.

Dave

More cracking shots Dave Small Skippers at this time of year when they're fresh really live up to the Golden Skipper moniker, lush examples there That first shot of the Marbled White is particularly fine, really like its posture

Have a goodun and stay safe

Wurzel

Cheers, Wurzel - Small Skippers really are golden when fresh. That posing Marbled White you like was very unstable and only stayed in that position for a second. Luckily that included the time I pressed the shutter button...

A quick scoot round a bit of my local patch later (after 4pm) found these two butterflies engaged in one of those typical annual tussles - Large Skipper v. hutchinsoni Comma. I think the Skipper won in the end.This is the time of day when Speckled Woods and Red Admirals like to set up territories in sunny parts of the paths.That Red Admiral was particularly new, and was yet another example of ab. fructa, with the forewing red band split in two by a black bar.

Dave

Monday 15th June. A start of a curious week of generally warm weather where sunny mornings gave way to showery (sometimes thundery) afternoons and evenings. I started as ever on my local patch, with twelve species seen today, dominated by Meadow Browns (74) with an upsurge in the numbers of females, and Small Heaths (35). Small Skippers were widespread across the whole walk - I saw ten altogether; I checked the majority and none of them were Essex. Nothing out of the ordinary today at all. Dave

Hi! Dave, love your shots of the Skipper's , I'm still on the look out for the Small Skipper the Whites haven't surfaced here yet.
Goldie

Thanks, Goldie - Small Skippers and a new generation of whites should be appearing any time up with you I reckon. You seem to have your fair share of Large Skippers already though! I try to get close to the Small Skippers to see if they are actually Essex, which sometimes results in some quite cute-looking shots (but an awful lots of blurry ones to go in the bin!).

Dave

For the afternoon of 15th June, I went down to another relatively close heathland site at Chobham Common to see how the Silver-studded Blues were doing there(and to see if there were any precocious Graylings in this unusually early season). By now, there was quite a lot of cloud around, but it remained warm and humid, and fairly calm. No Graylings yet, but there were a good sprinkling of Silver-studs which appeared fresher than the others I'd seen recently, probably because this is a less-sheltered site and their emergence is later. There were also several Small Heaths, which are notable here because of their particularly yellow appearance in flight and overall sandy look. In many spots, you can "tune out" Small Heaths from your butterfly spotting, but here they are impossible to ignore.The SSB males put on a good display in the bright mostly cloudy conditions (I only had one fleeting glimpse of a female)Also seen were a few Large and Small Skippers.

Dave