Kithurst Meadow

 

With the Pearl-bordered in the bag I needed my second spring priority, the Duke of Burgundy. Kithurst Meadow was an all but guaranteed location and it would give me some of the other spring butterflies.

It fills you with confidence when you walk into the meadow and see Cowslips the preferred egg laying plant and Bugle a good nectaring plant growing everywhere.

The Dukes were soon found with probably a dozen flying in the sheltered part of the meadow.

There were also lots of other species flying

Brown Argus

Dingy Skipper

Green Hairstreak

Grizzled Skipper

Orange Tip

Common Blues, Large and Small Whites, Brimstones, Red Admirals and Peacocks were also seen but were not stopping for a photograph.

Silver-spotted Skipper

The summer quiet patch has ended and the second half of the Butterfly year seems to going really well. My impression is that there are more butterflies around than last year although it may just be that in the hot weather they are more active than usual.

I should be able to see 46 butterflies in the year and that is without travelling outside of Sussex. As I was falling well short of that number I have spent the last few days trying to fill some of the gaps. Most are now annual pilgrimages, Newtimber Hill for the Silver-spotted Skippers, Windover Hill for the Chalkhill Blue and Grayling, and the more recent addition of Knepp for the Purple Hairstreaks.

Sometimes it seems a bit pointless going round seeing the same butterflies and taking the same pictures but then there are never two years the same. Numbers vary, habitats change, some locations fade away and others open up. Just seeing the changes taking place is part of the enjoyment - most of the time! There is also that exceptional picture that is still out there waiting to be taken.

Silver-spotted Skipper

Silver-spotted Skipper, a feisty little butterfly with a good turn of speed. It always reminds me of the Pearl Bordered and Small Pearl Bordered. You think you are following its movement and then a sudden change of direction or speed and its gone.

Silver-spotted Skipper

Silver-spotted Skipper

White Admiral

Large Skipper

But I am still missing the Essex Skipper and there doesn't seem to be that many Small Skippers about.

Peacock  - the dark side!

Purple Hairstreak

Purple Hairstreak, my bogey butterfly. I see lots of them but I just don't seem to be able to get a good open wing shot.

Chalkhill Blue

Chalkhill Blue  Female

Chalkhill Blue Male

Common Blue

Grayling

Grayling, a good two hours of searching and I was only able to find one butterfly at my usual location. Recent reports have shown better returns lower down the slope in Deep Dean.

Brown Argus

Brown Argus

Still  missing a few, Dark Green Fritillary, White Hairstreak, Essex Skipper, Brown Hairstreak and Clouded Yellow. Also a Small Tortoiseshell which I must have seen but have not recorded. Might even get a Long-tailed Blue or perhaps a Camberwell Beauty. Dream on!

Brown Argus

It will be interesting to see what this years Big Butterfly Count comes up with. My own experience is that the butterflies are there, but they are in much lower numbers than I have seen before. Some, such as Tortoiseshells and Commas, have been few and far between this year.

Two weeks ago I was walking through meadows and on chalk hillsides covered in wild flowers and I was having difficulty finding any butterflies. Then in the past week or so, things have started to improve. We had a good emergence of Chalkhill Blues, then, in the last few days, Brimstone, Peacock, Painted Lady, and Red Admirals all in good condition and in good numbers.

One walk along a ride in Houghton Forest really raised my spirits. There were hundreds of these freshly emerged butterflies and even a good number of slightly worn Silver-washed Fritillaries. It was just like old times again.

With this years butterfly season drawing to a close I am just keeping my fingers crossed for a recovery in numbers next year.

Brown Argus - Newtimber Hill

A quick trip back to Newtimber Hill gave me a few good finds. This Brown Argus took a bit of chasing but I eventually got the pictures I wanted.

Brown Argus - Newtimber Hill

It is always easier to get the pictures when the butterflies are otherwise engaged and this pair of mating Silver-spotted Skippers was no exception.

Mating Pair Silver-spotted Skippers - Newtimber Hill

Another unusual sight was this pair of Painted Ladies. I have only ever seen them as singletons before. I assume they are male and female. They were sticking very close together but I did not get any action shots. I also noticed that the top one has an extra white spot in the wing tip. Possibly an aberration.

Painted Ladies  - Newtimber Hill

Peacock   -  nice but it looked much more vivid in real life.

Wall - Newtimber Hill

Brimstone - Houghton Forest

Brimstone  -  Houghton Forest

Another great butterfly. A blue version of the normally brown female of the Common Blue butterfly. You might need to read that twice!

Common Blue Female

Common Blue Female

A walk around Tillets Fields gave us plenty of Purple Hairstreaks but as with my previous visit they stayed mostly in the tops of the trees. Fortunately one did drop out of the skies at our feet. It was a bit tatty but still worth recording.

Purple Hairstreak  - Tillets Fields

Dave also spotted a Brown Haistreak at Tillets but unfortunately it was gone by the time I got there.

Red Admiral  -  Houghton Forest

Red Admiral -  Houghton Forest

Speckled Wood  -  Madgeland Woods

Houghton Forest also had the largest number of Dragonflies that I have seen in one small location. I reckon around 40 in the area where we park the car although they weren't exactly lining up to be counted. They looked like Darters and Hawkers but none were landing to enable a definite identification. We also saw large numbers of Southern Hawkers at Madgeland Woods and these were a bit more obliging.

Southern Hawker

Southern Hawker

I am missing a few of my usual butterflies this year, White Admiral, Purple Emperor, Small Pearl-bordered Fritillary, White Hairstreak, plus all the northern species but overall it has been a good year. There is also still a chance of connecting with Brown Hairstreaks and Clouded Yellows before the month is out and maybe even a late Long-tailed Blue so I need to keep looking.

Swallowtail Butterfly

The race of Swallowtails that occur in Britain (Papilio machaon Britannicus) is one of the rarest and most beautiful butterflies in the world. It is endemic to this country and exists in just a few sites in Norfolk.

Being our only endemic species, I had decided to keep it to the last, in my quest to see all the UK butterflies, a total of fifty nine in all. Perhaps not a good idea, the first fifty eight took me about eighteen months but then I had to wait a further six months for the Swallowtails to emerge. Monday came, the conditions looked right and so I set off for Strumpshaw Fen just east of Norwich eager to complete the challenge.

Well, I saw it, but it wasn't really the event that I had been looking forward to. The weather was cooler than predicted and I only saw two Swallowtails all day. The first disappeared high over the trees probably going to roost until it warmed up. The second was making regular visits to the small garden by the visitors centre happily nectaring on the plants. Great, except that I had to share it with about a dozen other people - a butterfly twitch.

Swallowtail in the nectar Garden - I think the flower is Dames Violet

Not easy to photograph on a bright white flower

I walked around the meadow and the Fen Trail and made regular visits to the "Doctors Garden" but I could not find any other specimens.

By three o'clock it had cooled even further and there was no real chance of seeing any more Swallowtails. I headed off for the three hour drive home, happy to have my final butterfly but a bit disappointed by the overall event.

Fortunately my birding buddy Dave was keen to see a Norfolk Hawker Dragonfly so Thursday we made an early start and by 5am we were on the road back to Strumpshaw to see the dragonfly and hopefully a few more Swallowtails.

It was overcast and cool when we arrived but by eleven o'clock the sun was out, the temperature rose rapidly and within a few minutes the Swallowtails were on the wing. As we approached the "Doctors Garden", the first one came flying in to nectar on the flowers in the border and within a few minutes we had four to photograph.

Getting a picture is easy. They take no notice of people or cameras but they will head up into the trees to roost if the temperature drops.

I am happy with the pictures but they do not really do justice to the butterfly. They have a wingspan of 6.5 to 7.5 centimetres, a slow fluttery wing beat, and a presence that cannot really be captured in a picture. If you get a chance go and see them.

Perhaps the other disappointment was that we could only capture pictures of them nectaring on garden flowers. We saw a number of others around the fen footpaths but they were all flying through. It would have been nice to get them on the the wild flowers growing on the fen or perhaps on Milk Parsley the caterpillar food plant that the species relies on.

Other butterflies around the fen were Brimstones, various whites, a Brown Argus, a couple of common blues and a lot of very tatty Painted Ladies.

Brimstone

Brown Argus

There were three bonuses from the day. The first, Dave heard a couple of Grasshopper Warblers reeling away and after some effort he managed to locate them. I haven't seen one for a couple of year so this was a great find. I wasn't much help in locating them as their song is well above my hearing range.

The second, was sight of some great moths, courtesy of the Strumpshaw Fen Moth trap. The trap had been emptied early in the morning and the moths put out on the fencing for people to see. We must have walked past them four or five times without noticing them but when finally tipped off to their presence, at about four o'clock in the afternoon, we went back for a look. I was surprised that they were still there. I could have done with more light but these are better record shots than I had at the start of the day.

Elephant Hawkmoth

Eyed Hawkmoth - unfortunately not showing its eyes.

Poplar Hawkmoth

A second Poplar Hawkmoth

Our third bonus was that we met Mick Davis wandering around the meadow looking for dragonflies. I haven't seen him since his move up to Norfolk but he seems too be enjoying life up there and he was his usual source of information and helpful detail. A great loss to the Sussex birding scene.


A much better day with the Swallowtails, some good moths and I haven't even mentioned Dragonflies yet. They will be appearing in the next blog.