Heather's Nature Notes: DOWN TO THE WOODS TODAY

Today I visited two areas of woodland near Silverstone with my sister, hoping to see a number of butterfly species that live there. We arranged to meet, firstly, at Bucknell woods, a site I've previously visited for wood whites butterflies, although we would be unlikely to see any of those today. It was sunny when we both arrived at around 8.30.a.m. within five minutes of each other, each having travelled just over an hour from opposite directions.

After exchanging greetings, we started up the main track. Butterflies were already on the wing, warming up in the sunshine, notably ringlets and meadow browns, together with a few small and green veined whites.

We reached a point where the main track veered off to the left but chose instead to explore a couple of other narrower paths which also met at this junction. At this point we saw our first silver washed fritillaries which gradually became more numerous as the day wore on, only seeming to disappear for a moment or to when a cloud came over the sun.

Passing underneath a row of tall oak trees, I spotted some small silvery grey butterflies flitting around in the upper part of the trees. As expected, a look through binoculars confirmed them to be purple hairstreaks. Would they come down low enough to photograph, I wondered? As we waited, one or two did fly down lower and I endeavoured to zoom in on them for a photo. I then looked round and saw Karen had her lens focused on something much closer. An individual puprle hairstreak was settled on some bracken right next to the path and was giving some great views when it turned into the sun. I managed a few shots myself and then used my mobile phone to get even closer ones as it seemed to be so settled on the bracken leaf. Eventually of course it had enough and fluttered off and back up into the oaks.

After this delightful close encounter we returned to the main track and followed it until we came to another cross roads of paths, this time choosing a path where a number of old oaks were present , and where we hoped we might get a sighting of that most elusive of British butterflies, the purple emperor. Sadly, we didn't see one, but instead had to be content with finding a rare female form of Silver washed fritillary known as the valezina form where the orange colouring is replaced with a bronze green.These are obviously regularly seen here, as a couple of visitors enquired if we'd seen this particular form of the species.

From Bucknell woods, we drove the short distance to Hazelborough woods where we saw similar species but were also able to add white admiral to our day's tally plus we found another female valezina form of Silver washed fritillary. Returning to the car park, we caught up with family news over a picnic, then decided to make our journeys home after an enjoyable few hours down in the woods.

Species for the day: red admiral, white admiral, silver washed fritillary, peacock, comma , small skipper, large skipper, meadow brown, ringlet, large white, small white ,green veined whit,e purple hairstreak..