As usual, left Costa coffee for a walk back home. Today, I planned on spending more time at Stocking Wood, checking for butterfly species. As I wandered past East Wood, just inside the parish boundary, a small grey butterfly flew past and alighted in the grass. A purple hairstreak. A new site and a great start. I managed to get down flat on the ground and fire off some shots with the 55mm lens.
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| Purple hairstreak |
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| Uncommon open wing shot of purple hairstreak |
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| showing the feint hairstreak and small eye spot on underside of wing. |
Not too much as I headed off to Stocking Wood; a few chiffchaffs calling and first year buzzards mewing overhead.
As I arrived, in overcast yet warm conditions, there were not a lot of butterflies to be seen on the meadowsweet, common knapweed, vetch and bird's foot trefoil that all grow in this ride between the 2 woods, Stocking on the left and Stocking Woods plantation on the right.
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| Viewing the butterfly site from footpath to the south of the woods |
However, after a little searching, peacock and green veined white appeared, if not in the numbers seen yesterday when the sun was bright. After 10 minutes the sun emerged and the place immediately filled with creatures: 5 peacocks, 15 green veined white, 2 white letter hairstreaks, 3 purple hairstreaks, 1 silver washed fritillary, 6 gatekeepers, 1 ringlet, 2 speckled wood, 1 comma, 2 brimstone, 15+ meadow browns and even a sliver Y moth as well as countless Agriphila straminella micro moths. Certainly a superb site.
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| rather battered silver washed fritillary |
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| Poor record shot of white letter hairstreak |
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| Poor record shot of white letter hairstreak |
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| ringlet |
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| silver Y |
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| Managed to get close enough to use 55mm lens again |
As well as all this lepidoptera activity, overhead, more buzzards, a sparrowhawk whilst in the woods nuthatches and green woodpeckers called.
Also perched on the vegetation, several common darter dragonflies.
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| common buzzard |
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| sparrowhawk at considerable height |
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| much paler juvenile common buzzard |
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| common darter |
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| another common darter, this, a female |
I moved on, amazingly coming across another grounded purple hairstreak near Millennium Wood before heading downhill towards Hadham Ford. On the track in front of me, seen at the very last minute, a small copper. Only the 4th parish record of this uncommon butterfly for Little Hadham. Unfortunately, it flew into the hayfield and then off before I could manage even a record shot. The ensuing light shower meant it headed straight for the safety of the hawthorn hedge.
Back home, I sorted out the moths from the trap last night, with straw underwing, Yponomeuta plumbella and Agriphila geniculea all being new for the year.
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| Superbly marked straw underwing |
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| Agriphila straminella |
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