Plans for a Dartmoor day trip to the Challacombe Farm open day on Sunday 1st July with Mavis and Mike were cancelled due to heavy rain, mist and thunder and lightning in the morning but by the afternoon the rain had cleared through and it was hot and sunny and humid as I made my way to Central Park in Plymouth to look for white-letter hairstreaks.
As I walked through the park I noted marbled white, comma, meadow brown, ringlet and speckled wood and on arriving at the area where the hairstreaks are found I watched a small butterfly flitting between the trees before being lost from sight. A scan through binoculars of the tree top where it had disappeared from view soon found a small butterfly sat on a leaf and eventually it moved position and revealed itself to be a white-letter hairstreak - result!
White-letter Hairstreak
White-letter Hairstreak
As I was watching it took off to spar with another white-letter hairstreak flying by and eventually I saw at least 3 individuals with possibly more present as they flitted about the tree top sparring with each other and the occassional passing bee or fly. They were very active and spent little time at rest on the leaves and when at rest they were often obscured from view by the leaves or were angled away from view but at times I managed some decent views and got some record shots too - a telescope would have been handy though to get some better views as they spent all of their time in the top of the trees.
White-letter Hairstreak
White-letter Hairstreak
White-letter Hairstreak
White-letter Hairstreak
I spent a good hour watching their antics, also seeing a flyby male common blue too to bring my butterfly list for the weekend to 20 species. I then walked home via Ford Park Cemetery where marbled whites, ringlets, meadow browns and 6-spot burnets were flying around but I was very glad to get home and out of the heat and humidity after another successful butterfly trip - 2 new butterfly species in 2 days (purple emperor and white-letter hairstreak), not bad going at all.
Marbled White
Marbled White
Ringlet
The next morning and on waking up Birdy the herring gull chick was sleeping on the flat roof next door but had been joined by his/her sibling Burdy who must have leapt off our roof to join him/her overnight rather than use the chimney route.
Birdy and Burdy
No comments:
Post a Comment