Cheers, Wurzel - yes, a fresh Brown Argus in October is going to be a third brood example. Like the Common Blues and more especially the Holly Blues, there are almost always a few each autumn.
Saturday 9th October looked like another warm day with some sunshine, so I decided to make one more pilgrimage to the south coast. I toyed with possibly going to Southbourne near Bournemouth for a change, but in the end went once again for the nearer option of Shoreham in Sussex. I really should have checked on the traffic news beforehand...
As I approached the junction between the A 283 and the A27 I could tell something wasn't quite as it should be - traffic was solid down towards Shoreham town centre. I therefore headed up to Mill Hill to start the day, and as I crossed the bridge over the A27 I could see the westbound stream was being diverted down off the main road. I parked that future problem and set off on a circular walk around the slopes of Mill Hill.
I saw more today than on my previous visit a couple of weeks before: A Red Admiral, A Small Copper, a Comma and a Peacock.
However, despite decent sunny conditions I saw nothing else, no last vestiges of any of the site specialities here.
I could see from the vantage the hilltop gave that the traffic situation was no better, so I decided to trust to luck and make for the harbour edge down at Southwick by guesswork through the back roads of Shoreham. Luckily I have a reasonable sense of direction, and made it through without any holdups at all, parking in the usual spot up on the main road next to the slope down to the harbourside.
Down here in the shelter afforded by the location, it was pretty warm in the relatively low sunshine and there was much more variety. A late-flowering buddleia proved very attractive to some...
...and some crucifers to others.
Watching another white butterfly, I saw it suddenly mobbed by a couple of Clouded Yellows. The melee passed quite close, and I could see from this flyby that the "white" was in fact also a Clouded Yellow - a
helice female. Unfortunately, with two males chasing, it was not going to stop (though tantalisingly it attempted to do so a couple of times) and after a frustrating ten minutes or so it headed up and over the top of the slope and out of sight with one male still in tow. I didn't see it again.
However, the incident had revealed that there were certainly Clouded Yellows still around down here, and as the afternoon wore on I caught up with some of them.
With a few standard photos achieved, as ever it was time to try for the open-winged shots. Now that Bugboy has posted some great examples recently I don't think I can compete, but here are a few attempts at this genre...
If nothing else, it shows that all the remaining Cloudies were males - though a nice backlit example confirms this as well.
As I reluctantly decided to call it a day, one further species made an appearance - first a male, and then a very striking female Common Blue.
I set off for home, rather forgetting the probable traffic issues as the A259 seemed clear and remained so until it was too late to divert. I then became stuck at a virtual standstill for at least an hour in Shoreham itself - not the best end to what had otherwise been a cracking afternoon.
Dave