After having to postphone my visit to Daneway banks yesterday due to extra work committments, I made the journey to this Gloucester Wildlife trust reserve straight from work today after finishing at lunch time. The morning had been a sunny one but by the time I left, cloud had increased with little blue sky to be seen. However, it was still quite warm I was hopeful that the butterflies would still be flying, and in fact the large blues are often seen with wings open on cloudy days as they tend to shut them when sunny.
After walking uphill to the reserve from the layby where I'd parked my car, I arrived at the reserve entrance just in time to notice a couple of photographers looking intently into the grass ahead of me. It transpired they had found the first large blue butterfly of the day! The butterfly flew up then settled again, wings open, allowing for some photos. A cluster of photographers gathered and pointed their cameras towards it, some said that they had been there all morning searching with no success until now, a great relief especially for someone who'd travelled two to three hours to get there. For me, however, it was success straightaway!
I only saw two large blue butterflies on my visit, but not for long before they flew off and out of sight in the reserve. However, I was told that there were a good number of marbled whites in an area further along where they were nectaring so I went along to find those as I hadn't yet seen any this year. I also found a common blue, large skipper, a few meadow browns and a possible ringlet which I couldn't identify as it didn't settle.
Despite the lack of butterflies, which some said could be due to all the rain we've had earlier in the year, I did get chatting to others who were able to give me some further sites where I might find the butterflies I have still yet to see
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