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Dark Green Fritillary and Yellow-wort / Blackstonia perfoliate .

Cheers Greenie

Fresh Ringlets and Small Skipper in Epping Forest today

From my slow start, starting to regularly see Small Torts now, although it might just be the same individuals getting about a bit between my home and work.

Emperor dragonfly kindly stayed at rest for a while at lunchtime. Also what I think is a final instar red-legged shieldbug nymph...happy to be corrected on that.

I'd also be very grateful if anyone can ID the moth for me - taken at 9 am on a plastic tray for 8 x 1 litre tubs....ta.

My first silver-washed fritillary on the Isle of Wight today, plus at least ten small tortoiseshells.

My first second brood Comma seen on my local patch near Heathrow when the sun finally came out late yesterday 22nd (after a five day absence!). It didn't look like a full-blown hutchinsoni, more a sort of halfway house between that and the standard form.Much better weather today (23rd) enabled me to see my first Silver-washed Fritillaries and White Admirals of the year down in the woods at Bookham. Considering the strong sunshine and how early it is in their season, unusually the White Admirals were down low on the brambles even in the middle of the day. I noticed that as well as nectaring, they were sucking moisture from the shrubs low down (as in the second photo). This was clearly sticky, and it is a fair bet that Monday's rain may have washed a lot of honeydew off the trees onto plants lower down and so drawing the butterflies down too.

As ever, a full report of the trip to Bookham will follow in my PD sometime in the weeks ahead.

Cheers,

Dave

evidence of a migration in Essex today. I had 10+ Red Admirals, and a few worn Painted Ladies nectaring on corky-fruited water dropwort at Langdon Hills, the first high ground above the Thames terrace. Also about 50 Red Admiral and 30 Small Torts seen at a coastal site in NE Essex

Greenie wrote: ↑Wed Jun 23, 2021 5:01 pm Dark Green Fritillary and Yellow-wort / Blackstonia perfoliate .

Cheers Greenie

thanks so much Greenie !

Charles

Hi Zig-zag, some great photos. Believe your moth is a Dark Arches. Agree with the shieldbug ID; one of the few species that doesn't over-winter as an adult.

A lifetime first for me in the UK-and probably the last time for one of these. Seen at Ditchling yesterday.

30 + Silver Studded Blue at Fairmile Common this morning

A few from our walk this lunchtime in overcast conditions. Beacon Hill, Wiltshire

Marbled White x 16
Dark Green Fritillary x 4
Small Tortoiseshell x 13
Ringlet x 3
Adonis Blue x 4
Speckled Wood x 4
Meadow Brown x 10
Small Heath x 7
Brown Argus x 1
plus this lovely Scarlet Tiger flying around my garden this afternoon. Melksham, Wiltshire

Spent some quality time in Essex with White-letter Hairstreak and took way too many pictures ! Also found my first Small & Essex Skippers and my first Hutchinsoni commas of the season. The Heath Frits in Belfair and Pound Woods are still emerging and doing well. No Ringlets or Marbled White yet though and the Meadow Browns have only just started to emerge there.

aeshna5 wrote: ↑Thu Jun 24, 2021 3:45 am Hi Zig-zag, some great photos. Believe your moth is a Dark Arches. Agree with the shieldbug ID; one of the few species that doesn't over-winter as an adult.

Many thanks aeshna, I'm quite fortunate in that I can sneak behind greenhouse 5 at break and lunch and have a bit of time to myself to see what (if anything) is about.

I really appreciate your confirmation on the shield bug and I've just checked and Dark Arches looks like a very good ID call to me for the moth. It certainly was quite sleepy - it didn't fly off when I moved the tray about. To avoid disturbing it, I left the tray out of the way and the moth was gone when I next checked at circa 10:30.

Thanks again - if I see anything else interesting at work I'll keep posting on here.

Finished work early today, so thought i would go for DGF's an MW's.
Hayfever was just starting to kick off, but i still went out anyway
Had a pretty good session, sighting both target species, but i had to "cut it short", an "throw in the towel". My hayfever went crazy, nose was running like a tap, ears blocked up/pressurised, difficulty breathing, eyes itching like mad etc etc.....................Im in the wrong hobby!!!...Hayfever + long grasses/pollen = dont go out in it, you idiot.

Location Kent, images are not cropped. Cheers Paul.

Female Marbled White, head on, down in the long grasses/flowers. Close up of same female. (probably sighted up to 50 males, but only the 1 female).
Dark Green Fritillary (male). No sign of any females...over 10+ males seen.
Small Skipper. Less than 5 of these seen.

My first trip to the wood this year. Green Lane Wood, Wiltshire

Wednesday 16th - Haddon Hill, Somerset - around 100 Heath Fritillaries on the wing in the bracken glades at the bottom of the hill. The only other butterflies keeping them company were 2 Green Hairstreaks:

Thats a great picture of male and (very dark ..........minor AB; ?) female Heath frit ,David ...................Nice one !
Regards Allan.W.

My first Essex Skipper of the year on my local patch near Heathrow yesterday (24th). As with 2020, this was just ahead of the first Small Skippers (which appeared today 25th).Large Skippers just complicate things even more... Cheers,

Dave

Tuesday 22nd - Alun Valley, nr. Bridgend:

30+ 'large' Fritillaries seen whilst doing management work at the HBF site in south Wales today. A few were Dark Greens but the majority of them appeared to be High Browns given the dark ground colour, and both males and females were identified and photographed when settled.

Other species around were Large Skipper, Speckled Wood, Meadow Brown, Red Admiral, Common Blue and Small Pearl Bordered Fritillary.

Dark Green Fritillaries showing well on the hill this lunchtime. Beacon Hill, Wiltshire