It was only a slight possibility that I might find a High Brown Fritillary at Aish Tor, seeing as their flight period is virtually its end, but as I was in Devon, I thought it was worth a try. It would have been good to be able to write that I did manage to find one, but sadly there were no fritillaries flying at all, not even dark green or an early second brood small pearl bordered fritillary. Admittedly I wasn't exactly sure that I was searching in the right spot, I had located a car park that had been used as a starting point for a previous field meeting, but no one else was around so I couldn't even ask!
Nevertheless, the views were beautiful, a few Dartmoor ponies were around, and plenty of other butterflies, namely gatekeepers, small heath, whites, a painted lady, red admiral and surprisingly to me good numbers of graylings ( new sighting for the year) near the summit where the bracken was replaced by heather for the most part.
It was a hot day, and I was quite glad to return to my car after an hour or so of looking, knowing that I had a two and a half journey home from my couple of days holiday with my daughter and family. A few photos from my visit are below, but it was hard to get any decent photos of butterflies today.
path through the bracken
gatekeeper
gatekeepers
pony in the bracken
a view from my walk
looking upwards where the grayling were found
stonechat
grayling
grayling
painted lady
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