Saturday, 24 June 2017

RAVENSROOST BUTTERFLIES

Having read that Silver washed fritillaries and White admirals had been seen at Ravensroost wood this week, a free Saturday gave me the chance to look for myself. I arrived at 11.30am; cloudy with a breeze but quite warm and the chance of some sunshine a little later on. 

Entering the wood,  I came across a couple of  bird ringers just finishing taking down some mist netting. On getting into conversation, I found that this is a monthly occurrence, and that if I liked, I could go and observe one morning. So having got a contact email, I am thinking of following it up... watch this space!

Back on the main ride through the wood, I was surrounded by meadow brown butterflies and ringlets. I stopped at the usual spot favoured by my target butterflies, and to my surprise spotted a white admiral perched on a leaf right very close to me! I didn't get to see any of these last year so was pleased to find one so easily today. 

It was still cloudy at this point, but then the sun came out briefly, and then suddenly there  appeared a couple of silver washed fritillaries, which flew fast and high and disappeared again just as quickly!  As |I walked up and down the same few metres of path, I had repeated glimpses of the fritillaries, and eventually one stopped to feed, and I was able to get my camera out! 

Butterflies spotted at Ravensroost  wood today, included speckled wood, large skipper, small white, red admiral, meadow brown, ringlet, silver washed fritillaries ( at least 3)  and white admiral ( at least 2).

silver washed fritillary

silver washed fritillary

white admiral

ringlet

No comments:

Post a Comment

TRIP TO SUSSEX

  It's been a while since I've visited Sussex, so when a  friend suggested meeting up I decided to book an airbnb for a couple of ni...