Today I went to look for my probable last new butterfly species for the year, the silver spotted skipper, at Warren Hill, not far from Tidworth. This species is one of the last to emerge and is so called due to the white spots which show on its underwings. It is hard to see and photograph with its fast low flight over short turf and is restricted to chalk downland in southern England. On arrival I made for the area where I've seen them before and spoke to someone who was photographing Chalkhill butterflies found on the same site. He told me that he'd seen up to a dozen on an area of short turf nearby. I looked and found one fairly quickly, just by noticing the movement of a flower head as the skipper had landed on it. I only found three or four and then they all seemed to disappear. There were dozens of Chalkhill blues sunning themselves with open wings and I came across a mating pair too.
With some time to spare I next visited nearby reserve at Boscombe Down West to see what could be found along the embankment there: I saw several common blues, small whites, the usual meadow browns and gatekeepers, and one wall butterfly which did not stop. Rspb reserve Winterbourne Downs is also only a few minutes away so I popped over there too, the normal late summer species were seen on the grassland, and the buddleias held some red admirals, brimstone, large whites, and a hummingbird hawk moth. I had a look through the viewing screen for stone curlews but needed a telescope really to see anything.
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