I'm sure we'll meet again
Trever, especially if there's another LTB invasion!
It was
David, and here's another one
3rd February, Bookham Commons
I’ve been out and about a few times since my last post but I’ve been in between lenses and the weather has been mostly grey anyway. Last year I got myself a new (second hand) lense, a sigma 105mm which was the only lense I used all year. This year I decided to get a brand new one, partly prompted by chatting with
B’rex whilst looking for LTB’s last year. So yesterday my new Sigma 105mm lense, the f/2.8 EX DG OS HSM Macro Lens arrived. A quieter lense with all the moving parts being internal, no external zooming in and out, it will hopefully be less scary to the butterflies. As luck would have it, it arrived the day before my day off which also seemed to be less rainy or windy than the rest of the week so I thought I should take it out for a test drive.
I wanted to check on the various eggs and cats at Bookham so off I went mid morning and arrived a little after noon under a grey and dreary looking sky,
I didn’t hold out much hope for catching an early hibernator on the wing but I waded over to see if the Hairstreak eggs were still around, stopping to watch a couple of Redpoll feeding. Waded because it was mostly ankle deep mud! I found a third Purple Hairstreak egg
but the new one from my last visit had gone, unsurprisingly. Wandering over to check on the Brown Hairstreak eggs they seem to have gone the same way, no sign of them either
![Sad :(](./images/smilies/icon_sad.gif)
. I do find it very odd how they’ve not evolved a dark coloured egg!
My other two PH eggs were still nestled safely in the oak buds though so it’s not all doom and gloom!
Strolling through the woods over to White Admiral towers the sun did attempt to come out occasionally, giving the illusion if warmer times to come when it caught some early flowering Cherry.
Brian, I’m pleased to say is still snoozing quietly, a few rear end spikes just about visible.
Just to give an idea of how well concealed in plain sight he is here’s a more distant shot. The hibernaculum is about 1cm long.
Had to use a narrow depth of field due to the light levels so he's much less obvious in real life in amongst all the swigs and stems.
The honeysuckle itself is still in full leaf like my last visit
Over at Stan’s place, his hibernaculum is still intact so I can only assume he’s still tucked up in there somewhere.
Nearby I found a resting Bronze Shieldbug
Troilus luridus
That was it for the afternoon, although the sun was starting to come out more I decided to leave early and miss the London rush hour. Only a few more weeks to get through and we'll start seeing a bit of life again on the butterfly front
![Smile :)](./images/smilies/icon_smile.gif)