Today was my annual visit to Aston Rowant and Otmoor to see some of the last emerging butterflies species of the season. At Aston Rowant I hoped to see a species I missed last year; the silver spotted skipper. I'd seen a couple of reports already of 1 and then 5 of these butterflies so entered the reserve with a measure of optimism. I started a conversation with another visitor to the reserve who was looking for the same species and we agreed to give a shout if we found one! There were hundreds if not thousands of chalk hill blues-it seemed as every step I took disturbed 2 or 3 of them causing them to fly up from the ground. I also saw a painted lady, green veined white, small and large white, brown argus, meadow brown, gatekeeper, common blue ,brimstone .But no spotted skippers!
I caught up with the gentleman I'd been speaking to earlier (who hadn't found any either) and we started to chat about the usual butterfly subjects i.e. where he came from (Essex); which reserves he'd visited; how many species he'd seen etc..it transpired he only had 2 of the UK species still to find - cryptic wood white and chequered skipper. He told me he had just returned from Cumbria where he had located most of the northern butterflies..
We had mostly continued walking as we talked, but happened to have stopped when I looked down and saw a silver spotted skipper settled on a scabious flower only a few feet away! We didn't see any more but were happy to return to the carpark having succeeded in finding our target species.
I then drove over to RSPB Otmoor in search of brown hairstreaks. The usual grassy pathway known as the Roman Road was more overgrown than I remembered and very muddy in places. One other person was looking but neither of us saw any brown hairstreaks despite it being their flight period and sunny weather. I then went onto the main reserve and headed to the first screen where a wood sandpiper had been seen earlier but it wasn't showing now. However I did see a bittern in flight over the reed beds which was a nice surprise. There were quite a lot of dragonflies too including an emerald damselfly which I'd not found before.
I retraced my steps via the Roman road and this time saw up to 5 small dark butterflies fluttering at the top of some ash trees. I assume they were brown hairstreaks.
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