CallumMac

[CallumMac]

Thanks to those who gave me tips on southern sites. Time for a trip report! I am going to call it "False Alarm"...

Friday 9th - Barnack Hills and Holes

This site is so close to the A1 that it makes a great stop on any journey south. On this occasion it also happened to be sunny, so I thought there was a decent chance of Chalkhill Blue. Of course, I hadn't reckoned on the wind! But I managed to find a few flying in a slightly sheltered hole.

Saturday 10th a.m. - Aston Rowant

Over the course of Saturday I needed to relocate from the northern edge of London to the southern edge. Having spent some time on Friday night inspecting the topology of a range of sites that were within striking distance of the M25 - on either side - in the hope of finding some relief from that wind, I made my way first to Aston Rowant.

There was indeed some shelter from the wind, and I was able to track down one of my target species in the woodland on the summit of Beacon Hill - Violet Helleborine.

However, sod's law dictated that having found shelter from the wind, I would see no sun! So I decided to move on southwards to some more orchid sites. But as I reached the Dorking area, the clouds broke open and the sun appeared. A hasty reprogramming of the sat nav and I was on my way to...

Saturday 10th p.m. - Brockham Limeworks

As I had expected, this site offered a little shelter from the wind - though not complete, as the gusts swirled down off the quarry face. The first thing I saw was some very fresh Painted Ladies, which surely must have been locals!

My main target for this site was not hard to find, with dozens of Silver-spotted Skipper to be found all over the site. As usual they were quite unapproachable, but over the course of an hour or two I was able to get close enough to a few for some nice shots.

As evening approached, I took a brief detour up on to Box Hill and managed to locate three more spikes of Violet Helleborine growing on the road verge near the main car park.

[CallumMac]

Sunday 11th - Surrey

On Sunday morning I started out on Denbies Hillside. Many more Chalkhill Blues here, including a couple that were still quite fresh. Silver-spotted Skippers were also abundant but much less so, and harder still to approach, than at Brockham. An amazing show of Clustered Bellflowers and a few fresh Brown Arguses completed the picture.

With limited time available in the day, I decided to move on and make my first pass at the real target for this trip. According I found myself walking out onto Bookham Common, and the false alarms began! Gatekeepers, Speckled Woods, Small Heaths, Meadow Browns, all managed to look (from the corner of an eye) a little bit Brown-Hairstreaky. I spent a nice hour wandering the alleys between the blackthorns here but nothing turned into an actual Brostreak, so I decided to move on, stopping to take a couple of pictures of dragonflies.

A brief visit to Sheepleas was next, where I hoped that there might be a late-straggling Narrow-lipped Helleborine, but no such luck - all plants were in seed. However, more nice Painted Ladies and the first Small Copper of the trip were some compensation. And as I walked back to the car, a very strangely-shaped butterfly morphed into a very battered Silver-washed Fritillary!

Sunday afternoon was written off to a reunion with old friends from university, and Monday morning to a meeting with a potential collaborator. On Monday afternoon I headed west towards Salisbury, where I needed to collect a temperature logger from the Kitts Grave section of Martin Down NNR. I am always excited to revisit this site, the location two summers ago of my first ever valezina! On this occasion there were loads of SWF but nothing more special than that... However, a few Red Admirals and very fresh Brimstones were nice to see.

Into the second part of the afternoon and I decided I had time to make my second attempt at the Brostreaks, heading up to Shipton Bellinger. Here there were some slightly different flavours of false alarm, with lots of Holly Blues flitting hairstreakily around the tree-tops...

...and, to my surprise, a couple of very smart Wall Browns! These were, for a moment, the most convincing of the false alarms so far, just because it was a species I hadn't expected to see.

A good couple of hours were spent scanning the various hedgerows here, at the site where last year I saw my first ever Brostreak perching high up. But, other than a single rapid fly-past, it was to no avail. Somewhat discouraged, I headed on to my night's accommodation. Would my longstanding quest to see a Brostreak nectaring low down be forced on into its fourth year? To be continued...

[bugboy]

If it's any concellation, the BH at Bookham are playing hard to get, i was there on the 11th too and only managed a flyby (my first sighting of there year) and that was thanks to Millerds sharp eyes!

[CallumMac]

On Tuesday I had a very basic plan with lots of flexibility: I needed to pick up one more temperature logger, from a site on the Welsh border, and make it home to Yorkshire in time for bed. So I spent Monday evening flicking between Twitter and Google maps, trying to figure out my best options for one final go at the Brown Hairstreaks. Another try at Shipton Bellinger was one option, but there was barely a single recent sighting from there on Twitter, and I was not feeling encouraged by the previous evening's failure - it didn't seem like there was much nectar left in the field to tempt them down. Alners Gorse had a few sightings but would be an enormous detour. Otmoor seemed to be the most regular site this year, and surprisingly I realised that a visit there would only add half an hour to my journey. The plan was set!

Tuesday 13th - RSPB Otmoor

I arrived early, just after 9am, and began searching the verges of the Roman Road. The early signs were encouraging - far more nectar here than at Shipton, and it was being enjoyed by a good selection of false alarms!

After about an hour, I noticed a fellow hairstreak-spotter looking up into an Ash tree with rather more intent than would be expected for mere scanning. I hurried over and she pointed out a female Brostreak, perching several metres up on a spray of leaves. I took a couple of quick shots before it retreated further into the leaves, giving some frustrating so-near-yet-so-far views!

I stayed for a while scanning the Ash, and was rewarded by a second individual - a rather tatty male moving from perch to perch high up.

And after all of those false alarms, when it finally happened, I nearly overlooked it as another false alarm! I spent a minute or two watching a Common Blue nectaring on Angelica...

...and as I turned to walk on, noticed a Ringlet nectaring on another cluster of the same species a couple of metres away. Just before I looked away, three things occurred to me - "That Ringlet is very dark for what must be a very late individual", "That Ringlet is very small" and "That Ringlet has very sharp, angular wings" - and suddenly it clicked. It was a male Brostreak, with wings open!!

I called over the group of other people looking for butterflies, and over the next half an hour or more we were able to take turns to take close-ups of this very willing model! It was very freshly emerged, with only a slight deformity in its left wing preventing it from being the perfect specimen.

After some time, it fluttered upwards to perch just over two metres above ground and beside the path, remaining here for another five minutes. It was interesting to note here that, viewed from below with backlighting from the sky, the orange colour disappears entirely - see the difference between these two shots (the second was taken with flash).

With that, it flew upwards into the Ash tree, and I hit the road home, happy!

[Goldie M]

Lovely shots of the Hair Streak Callum, It's one I've yet to see Goldie

[Wurzel]

Cracking Brostreak Callum and a male as well which is the harder of the two to see and I prefer the subtle honeyed colour Mind you if you had gone back to Shipton you could have picked up a few females

Have a goodun

Wurzel

[CallumMac]

Thanks Goldie supposedly they are at Gait Barrows, but not sure this is the year to go looking - they seem to be pretty thin on the ground in most places.

Wurzel - so I hear! Oh well. Otmoor seemed like more of a sure thing at the time and I really, REALLY didn't want to have to wait until 2020!

Two summers ago, when I moved into my current house, I found a stubby little buddleia attempting to eke out a living in the narrow gap between greenhouse and house. I uprooted it into a pot and promised to plant it out if it survived the winter. Sure enough, it did, so I found a space by the bottom fence. Last summer it barely grew, doing all it could to survive the drought, but produced a few small flowers in late August. However, this summer it has exploded, and returning home on Saturday I found it covered in butterflies for the first time!

The neighbour's cat wanted to know why I wouldn't play with it...

On Sunday I made a trip to a site near Leeds looking for, and finding, my first Autumn Lady's Tresses. A dainty little thing, and sadly has much the same reputation as Brown Hairstreak for being a harbinger of autumn...

A walk along the scrubby hedgerow along the edge of the site produced a few butterflies, including a nice Common Blue (not so common this year!) and a Brown Argus.

Painted Ladies were still abundant but most now looking past their best.

[Wurzel]

Lovely set of shots Callum "has much the same reputation as Brown Hairstreak for being a harbinger of autumn..." - I would have said that we're still in summer until I came to Wales a few days ago - it's very autumnal here - rain, strong winds, laves falling off the trees Mind you come September it'll be record temperatures and a heatwave again

Have a goodun

Wurzel

[David M]

Some lovely recent reports, Callum, and I'm particularly pleased you got an audience up close with that Brown Hairstreak.

You've certainly had a busy August!

[millerd]

Fascinating travelogue of your meanderings through Surrey and beyond - I'm pleased you found the Brown Hairstreaks in the end, and very envious of your male at close quarters... As Bugboy mentioned, he and I were also at Bookham on 11th - I managed to see three BH altogether in several hours of hopeful looking. Once again I missed meeting you - this time on my stamping grounds rather than your Yorkshire ones! It can only have been by a whisker.

Cheers,

Dave

[CallumMac]

Thanks all, and sorry for a slow response - I've been offline at home ever since that Surrey trip, thanks to BT's useless customer service! For the same reason, I'm a bit behind on updates, so here's a very brief precis...

My garden, which was by no means the worst example of a suburban desert when I moved in, nonetheless has rather more accessible nectar in it two years later. My efforts in that regard paid off massively over the last fortnight, with visits from 7 species in total. The highlights were the sheer abundance of vanessids on my rescue buddleia, and a Holly Blue that happily moved from my thyme to my finger!

A visit to the migration hotspot that is Spurn Point on Sunday (hoping for Clouded Yellow and, optimistically, Long-tailed Blue!) produced neither target but a number of very nice Common Blues, a species I've seen too little of this year.

Having failed to find a single Cloudie at Spurn, it's safe to say I was pretty surprised to hear that evening that a large number (estimates between 5-10) had been seen miles inland on both Saturday and Sunday, at the new Ripon City Wetlands reserve. I headed there on Monday to see for myself, and sure enough, a considerable group of Cloudies were patrolling up and down a large area of Bird's-foot Trefoil.

Without wishing to give spoilers for millerd's PD, I agree with his assessment that these look, behaviourally, more like British-born individuals than a group of first-gen immigrants.

Back up to date just in time, as this weekend I'm heading south once more in the hope that I can get in on the LTB party!

[millerd]

Great to see your shots of the Ripon Cloudies, Callum. That second one, with its characteristic wing damage, was definitely present again yesterday. The other two look pretty fresh (as did at least one other I saw), which does tend to reinforce the idea that these are a home-grown group of butterflies. Good to see them up in Yorkshire too (considering I have drawn a blank on the south coast so far in 2019...).

Nice Blues from Spurn as well, especially the second female with its overall deep blue shade.

Cheers, and good luck with the LTB quest!

Dave

[David M]

Wow! If you've got Clouded Yellows in Yorkshire, Callum, I must make an effort to see if I can find any on the Gower coast over this next couple of weeks.

[Goldie M]

Well done with the Cloudies Callum I bet that was a nice surprise
Your garden sounds a lot like mine, the Butterflies certainly love the Buddleia don't they Goldie

[CallumMac]

Many thanks. I reckon Cloudies must be one of the best butterflies Britain has to offer (but then, I've probably said that about all of them at some point or other! )

31/08/2019, am - Whitehawk Hill

With reports of the Brighton LTBs remaining consistent throughout the week, I decided to give it a go this weekend, since I'll be out of the country for most of October when the next generation are likely to appear. I travelled down to North London on Friday after work, and completed the journey on Saturday morning to arrive at Whitehawk Hill just after 10am. I was not the first there, and was reassured that the LTBs were still around, and at least one was still in good nick!

Sure enough, it only took about 5 minutes for my first ever encounter with this species to occur - alas, it wasn't so much a "Long-tailed Blue" as a "Non-tailed Blue"!

Over the next hour or so, this individual defended its territory vigorously, repeatedly chasing off another male that (from a couple of brief glimpses) looked to be in rather better condition. Eventually, though, it must have lost one of the big spiralling battle, because suddenly there was a male with intact wings, tails and all! Amazing.

This individual moved around the territory (winning a couple of battles in the process) and gave all present lots of opportunity for photos.

Remembering that interesting photo last summer of a Hairstreak, showing how the tails project out to the sides to create an impression of antennae, I tried to recreate this with the LTB. To my surprise I discovered that LTB tails project directly backwards!

After a while, the balance of power shifted again and the original, ragged individual was back. I took that as my cue to move on!

31st, pm - Mill Hill and Anchor Bottom

My other target for this weekend's trip was Adonis Blue - a species I had seen this year, but not in good condition when they truly shine! Unfortunately the weather deteriorated somewhat after lunch; although there were plenty of Adonis Blues moving around at both of the sites on the edge of Shoreham, their wings were universally opened only to fly!

Interestingly, several individuals at Mill Hill had been marked - presumably somebody is doing some research or a census here?

At Anchor Bottom, I was amazed by both the number and the size of the Autumn Ladies Tresses - far larger than the ones I've seen in Yorkshire.

With nothing really doing in the afternoon after the intense high of the morning's LTB encounter, it felt like the universe was giving me a sign: "you've had a great butterfly season but it's over now; let it go and accept the autumn"! So I sat on the edge of the Downs, on a bench near the YHA, and as watched the sun set I reflected on another amazing summer of butterflies, in which I saw another five species for the first time, as well as discovering the wonder of orchids (very welcome on those grey dull days when the butterflies are hard to find!).

[Wurzel]

Cracking LTBs Callum - you did really well to find one in such great nick The Autumn Tresses are interesting looking orchids with the way the florets seem to spiral round the stem

Have a goodun

Wurzel

[David M]

I'm so glad you managed to find LTBs after investing your time in the journey, Callum.

I'm toying with the idea of doing likewise myself come the end of September/early October, but in the meantime I will be on alert in south Wales just in case any have managed to make it here.

[CallumMac]

Spring is only round the corner

I haven't posted on my PD since before my trip to the USA (documented in a separate thread), mainly because I became completely bogged down by the task of sorting thousands of photos from that trip! Nonetheless I've had a busy winter chasing those feathered, back-boned, winter-active species of butterfly... Since I suspect my first 'real' butterfly of 2020 can't be far away, I thought I'd post a few highlights to bring things up to date.

For my (September) birthday, my parents and I walked the spectacular coastline of Flamborough Head. Despite a strong breeze there were a few butterflies around, including a Small Copper that gave me pause for thought. Probably just worn, though!

Later in the month, a real highlight: my first record of Comma in my small back garden. I was surprised (but delighted) that it chose the butterfly feeder given to me by my partner over the thriving buddleia a few metres away. Perhaps the swarms of Painted Ladies, Small Tortoiseshells, Red Admirals and Peacocks drove it to the quieter artificial option!

With that, I was off to the States and the butterflies were well over before my return. So some highlights from over the winter:

Kingfishers often sit in front of one of the hides at Tophill Low NR, near Beverley, but rarely this close!

A Stoat has been regularly seen at my local patch, North Cave Wetlands, but I was lucky that on this occasion I spotted it before it spotted me.

Star birds from NCW: Bullfinch, Bittern, Goldcrest and Green Woodie.

A Kestrel on a frosty morning at RSPB St Aidan's impersonates a Weeping Angel.

Wonderful Short-eared Owls on my first visit to the Nene Washes.

A close, but very obscured, encounter with a Long-eared Owl at RSPB Saltholme.

A visit to WWT Caerlaverock, with its large flock of overwintering Whooper Swans and ever-endearing Tree Sparrows.

Barn Owls joining the Shorties on a return trip to the Nene Washes.

A Wallcreeper - no! A confused Treecreeper on a churchyard wall in Filey.

Brilliant Bearded Reedlings at Alkborough Flats on the south bank of the Humber.

And last but not least, a Little Owl earlier this month (by far the best work of art at the mind-bending Yorkshire Sculpture Park)!

A good winter but I am ready for warmth and winged wonderment again.

[essexbuzzard]

A nice collection of birds, Callum. Bearded Reedlings, in particular, are not easy to photograph, so well done.

[Wurzel]

A stunning array of birds Callum, they'd all look good on my year list Especially like the Kestrel shot, you've caught it in an interesting looking pose Also love the Bearded Tits - I've not seen those for a good few years now

Have a goodun

Wurzel