The continued sunshine is bringing out a number of summer woodland species. I've seen reports of purple emperors, white letter hairstreaks, white admirals and silver washed fritillaries. The last two of these can be usually be seen at Ravensroost wood near Minety, about 25 minutes from my home so after work I headed straight there, knowing that after today the weather was due to change.
It was warm with a few breaks in the clouds just sufficient for the butterflies to fly. As soon as I entered the wood I saw a silver washed fritillary which settled for a short time a couple of metres above me. This species often emerges after the White Admiral but they seem to have been recorded at the same time this year. However I did only see 2 or 3 of them during my visit.
I saw more White Admirals, but apart from the first one I saw which settled conveniently on some bramble next to the path it was difficult to photograph them, mainly because they were not settling very often, or if they did, they were behind a leaf or too high up.
I also saw plenty of ringlets, (first for the year) , together with meadow browns, a large skipper, small white and a few commas.
There were also various dragonflies, including emperors, black tailed skimmers and broad bodied chasers.
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