Winterbourne downs and Langford lakes

Thankfully it was a it cooler today, with a light but very welcome breeze. I  journeyed southwards to visit   RSPB Winterbourne Downs which is mainly a wildflower meadow but does have an area where stonecurlews breed. l left the carpark and followed a mown grassy path  lined with bramble bushes. These were attracting many butterflies and some dragonflies too, mainly meadow browns, gatekeepers together  with some whites, a peacock and red admiral. I stopped at the stone curlew viewing point but  it did say on the notice that you would require binoculars or telescope to see the birds. The vegetation had also grown quite tall so it was unsurprising I coudn't see anything. Another feature of the reserve is a man made S shaped chalk butterfly bank. This was covered in flowers but there were not that many chalkland species to be seen, I only spotted one small blue.  

small blue

Having completed my visit, I then drove to nearby Langford lakes, a wildlife trust reserve where for 12 days a red footed falcon has been delighting visitors . It was last seen  on Monday so the reserve was a lot quieter today   than  it has been. From the Meadow hide at the far end of the reserve  I could see how people were able to get such fantastic shots of it perching on a post, however I think that social distancing rules were largely forgotten in birders' desire to see this bird so I do wonder how many people were 'pinged' as a result. 

There was not much else in the way of birding really,  but I  did spot more gatekeeper butterflies and a second painted lady of the year. Dragonflies were continually buzzing around as they fed on insects but very rarely settling. Although a very quiet time of year, it was nice to visit a couple of new places. 

SPOTTED AT SLIMBRIDGE

With Covid rules due to be somewhat relaxed from Monday, I thought I'd visit WWT Slimbridge today  before people started to ignore the distancing rules.  

On  the Rushy were a family of tiny shelducks,  gorgeous stripy black and white ducklings which were darting about the water watched by their parent. In front of one of the islands I also saw a sleeping wader which at first I couldn't identify. After a while it lifted its head and stood up and its red legs became visible. However it didn't seem quite like a usual redshank so I wondered if it could be a spotted redshank. I asked the other occupant of the hide what he thought and he thought it probably was. I was quite surprised as it was easy to see yet hadn't been mentioned on the Slimbridge sightings on twitter. I decided to  take some photos and check its identity once I got back home. 

Other birds on the scrape included several avocets, black tailed godwits and a green sandpiper in the distance. I also saw one of the juvenile little ringed plovers that have fledged from a nest earlier in the season. 

I spent the rest of the morning visiting the hides which were mostly quite quiet, before paying a visit to the newly opened walk through aviary. The birds in this exhibit included little egrets, avocets, redshanks, spoonbills and garganey which  it was nice to see at close quarters. I then decided to wait for a pelican 'talk; at the new wetland theatre seating area - whilst waiting we had the bonus of  watching a 'training' session for a grey crowned  crane, whereby it was trained to choose the most attractive out of two imitation cranes!

avocet

black tailed godwit and shelduck duckling

Little  ringed plover juv

shelduck ducklings

sleeping wader

down curved end of bill and orange colour on lower mandible distinguish as spotted redshank

spotted redshank

garganey in aviary

grey crowned crane

 

this one?

pelican

spoonbill in aviary

IN THE MEADOW

I spent an hour in a  nature reserve near Lambourn this morning looking for  meadow butterflies on this area of chalk grassland. Lambourn is very much the home of racehorses and as well as seeing half a dozen riders, I saw  signs for an Equine hospital, home for injured jockeys and some very posh stables! 

It was  forecast a hot day so I got there fairly early (9.30am)  and already the reserve was alive with butterflies. I was hoping for chalk hill blues but saw no blues at all; however I was pleased to find a single Painted Lady, first for the year and unseen by me in 2020. I also found one small copper - another first for the year - but it   flew off before I could obtain a record photo. 

There were large numbers of marbled whites and meadow browns, as well as small heath, small and large skipper, one small tortoiseshell and a ringlet. 

ringlet

painted lady

small skipper

small tortoiseshell

marbled white

BACK DOWN TO THE WOODS

 

I went back to Ravensroost woods today during a brief spell of sunshine at midday today. Surprisingly the car park was empty on my arrival. I saw two purple hairstreaks and two white admirals together with many ringlets and meadow browns and  good numbers of silver washed fritillaries. The first hairstreak flew across the carpark as I arrived and settled in a bush on the opposite side. Unlike my last visit, no silver washed fritillaries were nectaring today, but I was able to take some photos of a white admiral which was on a bramble flower.

I also saw a four spotted chaser, brown hawker and lots of common blue damselflies. 

I keep hoping that I might find a white letter hairstreak; none have been reported this year so far and I didn't see any there last year either, despite having seen   one or two on a particular patch of vegetation for the previous three or four years. 

above and below  purple hairstreak

car park at Ravensroost the purple hairstreak settled in the bush to the right of the photo

white admiral

comma

ENCOUNTERS WITH H.I.M.

 

The weather forecast seemed perfect for looking for Purple Emperors this morning so I headed over to Bernwood Forest which seems the best local site for finding them. Several have been seen this week so I made the hour's trip over there and arrived at 9 20. The sun was just beginning to break through the clouds as I arrived in the car park which had a few spaces left. As I got out of my car and opened the boot, the occupant of the next car did the same, and took out his insect repellant spray as I did too!! 

He was obviously looking for butterflies too, and engaging in conversation with him, he told me he had had a Purple emperor land on his camera earlier in the week. When he told me that, I immediately recognised him as the author of a blog/website which I regularly refer to as he records all his bird, butterfly and dragonfly sightings daily. 

We both headed for the main track which is favoured by the PEs and gazed up in the treetops. After a while I thought I saw a large dark butterfly flying around the top but as it didn't settle in sight I couldn't positively identify it. A smaller species was also flying about which I took to be a purple hairstreak but it didn't come lower. 

As we were both looking, a lady who we'd spoken to earlier came rushing back up the track towards us and said she'd thought she'd found one but, not being an expert, wanted someone to help her identify it. She said it was sitting  down in the grass which seemed unusual but we followed her onto another narrow path and were shown it, it was in fact a purple emperor!  It wasn't moving that much and we wondered if it was freshly emerged. My earlier companion encouraged it onto his hand for us to take photos as it had been partly concealed by grass stems. He tried to transfer it to my finger so he could get a photo but the butterfly evidently decided it was time to fly off!

Returning to the main track I  saw a couple more purple emperors flying high up but then we saw a couple of people who said they'd found a white admiral, not so common in this wood. We located it in on some leaves then it  flew down to the ground.. not a white admiral but another purple emperor!  It proceeded to feed on some dog  poo before flying around us  several times and landing on.... the dog poo bin!!  It did this several times, each time landing on the bin,  then eventually on the ground in front of it where it posed for us for several minutes before  flying back into the trees,

At this point I decided I would return to the car as I wanted to fit in a trip to the nature  reserve at Aston Rowant, twenty minutes away to look for dark green hairstreaks which are said to be abundant there at the moment.  Once I had parked there I decided to take the higher route along the top of the embankment and I soon found  what I was looking for, together with large numbers of marbled whites, also meadow browns, skippers and small heaths. The dark green fritillaries were not settling very often, but eventually I managed to find one fairly close at hand for a couple of record shots. 

It has been a successful couple of days butterfly spotting; my next challenge will be the white letter hairstreak but there have been few reports so far.