Thanks all
Butterflysaurus rex wrote:Great to see you're still going strong buggy, it's nice to have some Clouded Yellows to chase around this year. If the weather stays good they could last us until early November like they did in 2009.
Perhaps I'll see you out & about somewhere in 2017.
Cheers
James
Maybe sooner than that James if these LTB hang around!
14th September
So whilst others were out photographing Long-tailed Blues at Newhaven Tide Mills
![Mr. Green :mrgreen:](./images/smilies/icon_mrgreen.gif)
I was a few miles down the coast on the Downs overlooking Eastbourne!
I’d initially thought to go to Denbies again but with the ridiculously hot weather I decided I might want a sea breeze to keep me going. I stopped off at Lewes and Malling Downs first, just in time for a large dark cloud to roll in and for an hour all I saw were a couple of Red Admirals which I’d disturbed and a Speckled Wood.
Eventually the clouds dissipated and a few other butterflies came out to play, like last time Common Blues were active again, a few Small Heath and Meadow Browns were about but the star of the show was a beautiful fresh Comma who posed briefly for me.
As I was leaving I couldn’t resist a few backlit shots of a Small White on Devil’s-bit Scabious.
have to say, Malling Down has been a bit disappointing for me this year, numbers of Silver-spotted Skipper and Chalkhills both way down on what I saw last year and not a sniff of either Walls or Adonis for me here
By the time I got the Downs overlooking Eastbourne it was significantly warmer and everything was going full steam ahead, Common Blues, Small Coppers, Small Heath and a male Clouded Yellow all tormenting me with flybys
Eventually I found a Blue that wasn’t quite so manic and I watched it flying around, trying to decide what Ragwort to land on. Unfortunately that was probably it’s last thought, it flew into a rather large spiders web and was immediately wrapped up for later by the owner, its fate sealed by a rather large female
Araneus diadematus. Oh well, such is life (and death). Given his condition (like all the others I’d seen so far), there’s little doubt he’d already done his deed for his species.
Next up was a Brown Argus and then some more Coppers who were somewhat more accommodating.
The scrubby area these were hanging out, which consisted largely of Nettles and Brambles was also home to several Comma, Red Admiral and Peacocks. All of which looked very fresh but were very uncooperative, with only some long distant Comma shots achieved. The presence of the fresh Peacocks perhaps suggestive of a second brood occurring here.
As I was trying for some Vanessid pics (and failing) I had a little avian observer, I wasn’t sure at first but after a couple of snaps and closer inspection I able to confirm I had a Spotted Flycatcher watching me! I’ve only ever seen these from a distance before so that was nice.
One of the reasons I chose this site was to see if any third gen. Walls had emerged after Trevor’s recent post. I’m happy to say I found none, hopefully it will remain this way since most evidence currently suggests this often leads to local extinctions
![Confused :?](./images/smilies/icon_confused.gif)
.
The rest of the afternoon was mainly taken up with Small Coppers, who were turning up pretty regularly, in a variety of conditions…plus a rather surreal moment with a grown man dressed in a full Spiderman costume filming himself with a selfie stick…
I easily made it into double figures with them today
![Very Happy :D](./images/smilies/icon_biggrin.gif)
!
The last species for the day took me by surprise, a rather late Small Skipper.