PBF's and SPBF's at Bentley Wood

Philzoid · Post by **Philzoid** » Tue May 10, 2011 9:21 pm

: A PBF.JPG (70.88 KiB) Viewed 191 times

Made two trips to Bentley wood, the first on 1st of may and the second on the 7th to see Pearl-bordered fritillary, a species I'd only seen once before at Chiddingfold, Surrey in 2005. Since 2006 I believe they've become extinct in that county. Fortunately there were plenty on show in Bentley Wood and despite the warm weather keeping them fairly active I managed to get a few pictures including a mating pair. There was also quite a few egg laying females which provided the easiest to photo opportunity due to their preoccupation.
The whole day was such an enjoyable one that I decided to come back the following Saturday. this time there were some Small Pearl-bordered Fritillaries amongst the PBF's (my 10 year old daughter managed to get the underside shot of the SPBF). Because the literature states that SPBF emergence is at the end of May into June and because I have not had a confirmed sighting of SPBF before, I could do with some help with confirmation. I have attached a few more pics of other interesting creatures seen over those two days: