A Weekend of Butterflies

In late June, birding opportunities are limited locally, so I travelled to search for some butterflies. I only became interested late last summer, so I don't know too much about locations of them or how to find them.

It was lucky that I noticed that there was a guided walk to look for butterflies at a site not too far away - run bu the Upper Thames branch of Butterfly Conservation. 

On Saturday we headed up to Holtspur Bottom reserve to join the guided walk. The first butterfly was a Small Tortoiseshell, followed by Meadow Browns, Ringlets and Marbled Whites.

A Common Blue was seen briefly, and a Large Skipper also showed.

One of the leaders caught a Skipper butterfly in the net, and showed it to everyone briefly before letting it go to minimise disturbance. It was an Essex Skipper, separated from Small Skipper by the black undersides to the antennae. This was a new butterfly for me. 

Essex Skipper

Next we searched through the meadows, where another group leader found one of the target butterflies - the Small Blue! They were even smaller than I expected, and it was often hard to track them as they flew through the grassland. I eventually got prolonged views of one settled on its food plant (Kidney Vetch?). A very brief Dark Green Fritillary flew through, which was apparently an unusual record for the site. However, it was the worst views I have had of any butterfly, and I will be going out to get some better views soon at another site.

Small Blue

Another highlight of the day was the other wildlife, and the knowledge of the guides. When I joined the walk I planned to look for nothing but butterflies, and would avoid everything else because it wasn't interesting. But I soon became very interested in the various moths, beetles and bees of the area. 

Unfortunately, I haven't managed to remember the names of all the things I saw, but I do remember an interesting moth - Mother Shipton, a Thick-Thighed Flower Beetle and some sort of solitary bee. It has encouraged me to learn more about these animals. 

On Sunday, I went out by myself to my nearby woodland. The first new Butterfly I saw was a White Admiral, with quite a few flying around. However, I was struggling for anything else. I tried looking in the treetops for Purple Hairstreak, but couldn't find one. But just as I was walking back, a butterfly flew across the floor beside me and landed nearby. Looking at the underside, I could see it was clearly a Purple Hairstreak - great to see my first one on the floor. 

Purple Hairstreak

Other butterflies seen that day were Ringlet, Meadow Brown, Gatekeeper, Small Skipper, Small Tortoiseshell, Red Admiral, Speckled Wood and Comma.

A Garden Warbler was also singing, which I thought was quite late for this species.