It's the start of the main and last phase of the Butterfly season. My walks here consists of two parts, one week apart but at the same place...Whiteley Pastures in Hampshire.
Nestled in between a business estate and shopping centre, you really wouldn't know it existed. Move away from the busy bustle of capitalism and consumerism and you are transported into a wildlife haven of some magnitude.
I parked the van near the National Air Traffic Control offices where the path starts and immediately heard the dull calls of a beautiful bird. The Bullfinch feasted on the flower buds and refused to give me other than a guarded view through the bush. One day I will get a good shot...
My first butterfly of the day was an ever reliable Speckled Wood that dance around in the dappled light. One of the few butterflies to be seen where the sunlight penetrates the woodland floor in patches.
I began my walk up the main path that divides Botley Wood on the right and Whiteley Pastures to the left. This track is perfect for seeing all types of Butterflies and Wild Flowers.
A burst of fast flying orange around the bramble flowers signified the entrance of my first sighting of a Silver Washed Fritillary this year. It chased off any near that dared to challenge it's size and ambition. The archetypal school bully some might say?
Beautiful nonetheless......
And as fast as it's wings can carry it, it shot off again...
Another first for me this year was the Ringlet. They abound here and dance around the grasses that edge the path like puppets on strings, never seeming to want to settle. Why expend so much energy? Back and forth they go until, with patience you are rewarded.
Not the most colourful perhaps, and often overlooked but for me a subtle and pretty thing...
Another LBJ of the Butterfly World (or Little Brown Job) is the Meadow Brown. Another profuse customer around these parts and any parts for that matter. Once first seen in the season they are welcomed when there is little else around.
Moving away from the Butterflies, the umbels of the Hogweed always give some wonderful shapes against the backgound
Common Spotted Orchids are very common here too....
Meadowsweet are now starting to flower and smell exactly as they sound, very onomatopoeic in the olfactory sense, if you get my meaning??
Skippers started to appear in numbers. The main protagonists were the Large Skippers. Here a male and female are flirting with each other prior to mating...
A female feeds on a Spotted Orchid
There are three types of skipper that emerge here. To the untrained eye they can look very similar. The Essex Skipper below here, has black tips to the clubs of it's antennae....
The Small Skipper (below) has orange tips to the underside but dark to the top, difficult I know but very different species. The Essex once thought quite rare is now fairly common through such detailed definition.
Passing these by, and trying to clear my Skippered head, I happened upon a small brook where I knew I could find Beautiful Demoiselles. I wasn't disappointed....
The females were being courted by the iridescent blue green males....
Whist one decided it was time for a light gnat snack in between loving and fighting..!
Juvenile Blackcaps flitted through the trees as I carried on
High above I was distracted by a Buzzard on the lookout for an easy meal gliding on the thermals....
Back closer to terra firma A Marbled White appeared for a half decent portait...
A Six Spot Burnet Moth, one of a few day flying Moths gave some stunning views in the sunshine as I continued to my destination at The Ridge.
At the ridge a path bisects this and following through you reach a glade where some tree felling has occurred. This lets in the light to allow Foxglove and Thistle to grow, and in turn brings in other species...
Another Silver Washed Fritillary in immaculate condition flitted among the glade...
 |
| Three others appeared also...... |
The tall thistles gave excellent photo opportunities from below...
Butterflies weren't the only creature to benefit from the thistles. Goldfinch feasted on the seed heads...
A Southern Hawker rested on them too!
Fully satiated I headed back down the track to the van... not before some surprise guests put in a late show....
A Roe Deer striking the perfect pose...
A very fast moving Butterfly caught my eye, could it be a Purple Emporer I was so hoping to see?
It hid surreptitiously behind the foliage...
Not this time, but still a great find nonetheless, a White Admiral....
Almost at the end of where I started, a Comma showed it's hand or should that be wing?
And not to be outdone, my first Gatekeeper of the year, clearly newly emerged and stunning to boot!
A gem of a place, most people pass by heading for work then spend their wages at the nearby shopping mall. If they only knew just over the treeline sits Nirvana, and it doesn't cost a penny!
N.B.
The title of this post is an excerpt from the song 'Love is like a butterfly' by Dolly Parton
No comments:
Post a Comment
Please leave me a message if you would like to do so.