There is a clearing near the entrance known as the Eastern Clearing, which has a good population of Pearl bordered and Small Pearl Bordered Fritillaries, and I was hoping to get my first sighting of the latter species. Consequently I headed there initially. Many ringlets were fluttering about amongst the bracken, and a few marbled whites, but sadly no fritillaries. Checking the log book in the carpark later on, it seems that none have been seen for a while, and I concluded that they must have finished for the year, despite some butterfly guide books suggesting that they can even be around into July.
I had returned to the car park, to get refreshments from my car, and decide which part of the wood to explore next, when a dog walker greeted me and made a passing comment that there were a some big butterflies around today, but he didn't know what they were! BIG BUTTERFLIES! Could it be... his majesty?
There was one way to find out, so I asked for directions where he had seen them, which was a short way up a nearby track and forking left. I walked purposefully along the track, and soon came across the fork he had mentioned. As I turned to go down it, a large dark butterfly flew down to the ground ahead of me. Was it..... yes it was.... a Purple Emperor! The blue sheen told me it was certainly a male, but it only stopped for a few seconds before flying off. I waited, and it appeared again, this time settling on some leaves at the side of the path at about knee height. I got my camera ready but oh no, the battery symbol was showing red, but thankfully it lasted long enough to enable me to take some photographs. It then flew off again and I inserted my spare battery, but this beautiful butterfly did not appear again.
At the back of the bracken, I caught sight of another slightly smaller dark butterfly, which proved to be a white admiral but was sadly too distant to photograph.
Returning somewhat elated to the car park, I met a few more butterfly enthusiasts anxiously scanning the tree tops for purple emperors; apparently one had been seen briefly earlier but had now vanished. This time it was my turn to show my photographs rather than enviously look at other people's!
Not being in a hurry I decided to take the 20 minute walk down to some elms which are the home of a colony of white letter hairstreaks, and where I had seen a single individual a few years back. A couple of visitors were already there, staring up into the tree tops, and the husband pointed out a butterfly which I only glimpsed for a couple of seconds before it disappeared amongst the canopy. He told me it was a white letter hairstreak and he had seen three of them in total. We waited a while, but it had begun to cloud over and we felt it was unlikely they would fly again.
Getting into conversation, he told me that he had only two more species to see before he had seen the whole of the UK butterfly species. These were swallowtail and brown hairstreak - both of which I have seen. Questioning him about the northern butterflies, he said he had found it easier because he came from Newcastle. However, with a lot of butterflies found only in the south of the UK, he had to take regular mini breaks in order to see them.
The problem with brown hairstreaks is that they appear in August, and he usually tried to avoid school holidays, but with just two to go, I guess he will just have to do it once!
Although slightly disappointed to have missed the fritillaries this year, I was very happy with my purple emperor sighting, the past couple of years I have seen them high up on the column at Savernake forest, but never as close as today.
No comments:
Post a Comment