Cheers, Trevor - amazingly another Cloudie turned up today, but proved impossible to catch up with. That makes three in ten days now, so maybe they really are following the river. All three have been within 20 metres of it. I wondered if any would appear down at Southbourne, Wurzel - they are a bit of a fixture down there over the years. I hope you get to see them somehow - and bonus LTBs too!
Thank you Katrina (and Trevor and Wurzel) for the Holly Blue appreciation.
Such a reliable and obliging species here, but this was a particularly splendid individual.
More sunshine was forecast on
Friday 13th September, and temperatures up a notch with less of a chilly northwest wind. I tore myself away from my local patch and headed down to Denbies to see if anything remained of the summer butterflies, and bearing in mind my local sighting, whether any Cloudies had turned up down there as they often do.
In the end there was a spectacular lack of migrant butterflies, with just a couple each of Large White and Red Admiral possibly coming into that category. Small Heaths...
...and Meadow Browns were probably the commonest species, though there were also quite a few female blues - many of which were almost impossible to identify even close up because of the degree of wear. However, there were some identifiable female Adonis alongside the bright and shiny but worn males.
There was this one, which I have down as Adonis - but I'm not 100%...
...and this one, which I think was a Chalkhill but I'm not entirely certain about that either!
This one I'm confident
is a Chalkhill Blue...
One of the males was an aberrant (ab.
krodeli, or something close to that), but it refused to pose with its wings shut in a sensible place.
Also seen was a single Small Copper - in past years they could be found in several spots around the hillside, but this one was the first for a while.
I expected that the Silver-spotted Skipper season would be over now, but was pleased to come across a solitary female in traditional pose, nectaring on one of the last remaining scabious flowers.
She then moved down onto the grass, no doubt to continue laying eggs.
The contrast between here and my local patch is that Denbies seemed to have very few flowers left, whereas at home there is still a riot of colour. Ironically, the annual big grass cut back in July that concerned me a little at the time has proved beneficial by removing all the rampant grass growth from the wet spring and letting the wild flowers bloom a second time without the competition. Denbies relies on grazing, and the cows were taken off the hill while the grass was still long and getting longer, so many of the flowers have been choked - and certainly didn't have a second flowering.
Dave
Star of the show must go to that delightful Brown Argus 
The local park threw up a Common Blue the other day which, as I'm just pottering, has been the highlight of my week so it's great to see your more 'exotic fare' 
