www.ukbutterflies.co.uk

This relatively small chalk common is a real magnet for butterflies including chalkhill, common and adonis blue. I believe marsh fritillaries were spotted earlier this year too. For those who live in the Bristol/Bath area who cannot find it, I now have a grid reference: ST839678. This will put you at the top of the common with the larger part to the right of the unclassified road and a smaller part to the left.

Hi Eccles,

Following your previous posts mentioning Hazelbury Common I have already made a couple of visits and was luck enough to find the Common Blues, Chalkhill Blues and Adonis Blues all in flight, as well as Small Copper (my favourite). So thanks!

The Butterflies of Wiltshire by Fuller, which has really nice historical info but is desperately lacking an index [if anyone is planning to publish a revised version, since it's over 10 years old now, please look at Butterflies of the Bristol Region by Barnett et al for how it should be done] also mentions Kingsdown just south-west of Box as a former Marsh Fritillary site. It might be worth checking out next year. The distribution map of the Small Blue also has a big black spot in the Box area. Does anyone know if it is still found in the vicinity, and if so where?

Simon

hi
I've been visiting the common now for 4 years,small blue is still there but in small numbers-they are usually on the roadside bank at the bottom of the common.marsh frits are there in good numbers most years.
so far we have counted 28 different species on the common.
regards
mark