Winterton Dunes - 14th September

As part of our holiday to North Norfolk we spent a fair bit of time at the beach. where we were staying was a five minute drive to the beach or you could walk there instead. I chose to walk there one day as the route passes through Winterton Dunes, which is a Natural England national nature reserve.
We had superb weather with the sun splitting the sky and rather warm temperatures. Hopes were high for butterfly spotting. This time i was not to be disappointed. On the way towards the dunes there were a lot of white butterflies and even more Red Admirals sitting on Ivy flowers or on brambles. fff
The highlight of the trip to the beach was my first ever sighting of Small Coppers and there were loads of them. I enjoyed chasing them round on the dunes, luckily they were fairly happy to pose for photos.

There were some other butterflies in amongst the small coppers. They kept leaping up from the grass to chase off coppers and others of there own sort. They were fast and I struggled to keep up with any of them. I eventually caught up with and photographed one but I have no idea what it is as it’s pretty dishevelled. I’ll try and find out what it is somehow!

Hickling Broad September

For a last summer trip I went with my family and my in-laws to Norfolk. the weather was good to us, but would the butterflies be? I’d done some reading on the internet and it looked like Hickling Broad was the place to go to see Swallowtails. Straight off there were two disapointments in the visitor centre. Firstly my membership card for the Warwickshire Wildlife Trust was not valid here, valid at 2000 odd reserves but not this one! Secondly there was a second brood of Swallowtails this year but they did not survive very long due to the poor weather in August. However there were loads of dragonflies to see and a few Red Admirals and Small Tortoiseshells to see too.
There were a few surpises too. We managed to see a common lizard on one of the jetties onto the broad and a Peacock met us at the visitor centre on the way out. Not a butterfly Peacock but the feathered variety. Overall a good morning out and worth the money I begrudgingly had to pay.

Horsey Gap

As part of my trip to Norfolk I had hoped to find Green Fritillaries at Horsey Gap. Needless to say I had no such luck as I’m not sure any fly at this time of the year. It was sunny anyway and we had a great time looking at the seals and I found a colourful spider in the dunes.

In terms of butterfly action I only saw a few Meadow Browns near to the gap. No pictures to show as I couldn’t catch them.

PS. it’s a very long walk from the Horsey Pump                     

Back to Oakley Woods again!

Once again I cajoled the family into traipsing round Oakley Woods in order to find a few more butterflies.

The aim was to find some different species, needless to say that didn’t happen but we enjoyed chasing after the usual suspects (Commas, Speckled Woods, Red Admirals and Green Veined Whites). The Commas in particular were out in force. You can see the “comma” on the hind wing of the comma on the left.

The Red Admirals pictured below were found on some Holly bushes. I particularly like the black and white banding on their antennae.

I’m sure I saw a more unusual butterfly flying higher up in the canopy but it didn’t come down to allow for an identification. It’ll keep me coming back to the wood to identify it though.

I found a caterpillar of the Elephant Hawk Moth, pretending to be a snake, when i got home. It pulls its head into its body to take on the appearance of a cartoon snake. How clever!

Trip to Twycross Zoo

 

For the last few weeks I’d not been able to get out to see any butterflies due to a combination of poor weather and other commitments. As we had some visitors who enjoyed visiting zoos we took them to Twycross Zoo. This gave me the chance to take some pictures of butterflies too. I have no idea what type they are as my book doesn’t cover tropical butterflies. You didn’t really have to look for them as they were all around, occasionally landing on members of our party. I really liked the black and white one pictured below.

Hairstreak hunt

I was keen to see a different type of butterfly again this week so set out to find some hairstreaks and White Admirals. It was a trip to Oakley Woods again as the website has pictures of White Admirals there and as there are a bunch of Oak tree my book suggests that there should be a reasonable chance of finding some Purple Hairstreaks at this time of the year. The plan was to find some oaks with a sunny glade next to them and the hairstreaks should occasionally fly down to any areas of grass. White admirals apparently enjoy brambles so I’d check them out.

Needless to say my (somewhat limited) planning was to no avail. I ended up seeing loads of Speckled Woods, Green veined whites, a silver washed fritillary (couldn’t get a photo), a red admiral and a gatekeeper. I think the winds were too high for the hairstreaks to venture out of the canopy (assuming they are there in the first place!).

Link to:Warwickshire Wildlife Trust Oakley Woods page

Daddy, I’m bored, there’s not many butterflies today!

Technorati Tags: Oakley Wood,Warwickshire wildlife trust,Warwickshire,butterflies,speckled wood

Wandering in Wappenbury Woods

We visited the Warwickshire Wildlife Trust's Wappenbury Woods today hoping to see some more butterflies and we certainly did: we saw a Silver Washed Fritillary, Speckled Woods, Peacocks, Large Whites galore, Small Skippers, Gatekeepers, Meadow Browns and a Red Admiral.
We started off at Old Nun Wood but found the path to be a bit overgrown for us (that's because the baby was in his carrier back pack, passable without that) there were some impressive seven foot high nettles towering over me. We retreated and went on the the main woods.
We didn’t see too much at the start of our walk, there were a couple of Speckled Woods initially but we were in a fairly dark part of the woods working our way past (and through) the brambles. But after we reached the far side and worked our way back there were many coppiced areas in which the butterflies were active. The Silver washed fritillary had a damaged wing but seemed able to fly fairly easily, I enjoy seeing them particularly as I don’t see them in the back garden.
  We saw two or three small skippers in one of the coppiced areas, and numerous dragonflies (or similar creatures). We even spotted a large moth in one of the darker bits of the woods. I thought it might have been a yellow butterfly but was sadly disappointed.
 

Technorati Tags: speckled wood,small skipper,large white,silver washed fritillary,butterfly,butterflies,wappenbury wood,warwickshire wildlife trust

What's in the garden today?

 On Saturday I had a bit of time to myself as my wife and child were attending a birthday party. I fancied some time to myself so stayed at home and popped into the garden shortly before the thunderstorms started.

There were lots of white butterflies flitting around but the main ones that caught my eye were a Gatekeeper, a Red Admiral and a Large white dive bombing my veggie patch.

Sunday Butterflies at Newbold Comyn

 Still being keen to find more species of butterflies I headed back to Newbold Comyn to visit the Leam Valley Nature Reserve. I had checked out the results on the Big Butterfly Count website to determine if there were any places nearby that might have something interesting to see. Newbold Comyn was the place to go for Common Blues and I was not let down. I managed to get pictures of both a male and a female.

Wandering along at the side of the River Leam we saw Gatekeepers, Meadow Browns, Green-veined Whites, Peacocks, Red Admirals and Speckled Woods. We also saw a green woodpecker but it was too quick to get a photo. Plenty of dragonflies too but I have no idea how to go about photographing them, much too fast. We'd brought the pram instead of the backpack for the boy, poor choice as the ground was a bit too rough for the pram. We had to head back early as it was too hard going. We'll be sure to head back soon.

We did spot one butterfly which we couldn't identify. Please let me know if you know what this is.

Unidentified butterfly

 

Peacocks

 

 

 Speckled Wood in the trees

 Gatekeeper

Oakley Woods - Overly Friendly Peacocks!

On Saturday morning we ventured out into the nearby Oakley Woods to do a bit of butterfly spotting. I'd been reading up on where might be a good place to find species that I had not yet spotted, the garden was full of small tortoiseshells, gatekeepers and the speedy whites that I can never quite get a photo of. I wanted to see some new butterflies so off to the woodlands we went. the book recommended oak woods but I'd make do with pine today, though the amount of ferns that there were gave it the feeling of a jungle, well that combined with the rather warm temperatures. Accompanying me today were the boy and my wife (who turns out to an excellent butterfly attractor)

Big butterfly count

I just counted 13 butterflies in the Big #ButterflyCount. Help @SaveButterflies & join in http://bit.ly/12D3sF2

I was planning on getting out in the morning to find some butterflies but the weather was too bad. Observed them in the back garden instead. Saw peacock, large whites, small tortoiseshells, meadow brown and a gatekeeper.  No decent photos though.

More importantly join in the big butterfly hunt! Citizen science!

Late afternoon Warwickshire butterfly walk

 After a bright and sunny morning I persuaded my wife to join the boy and I on a walk around the fields near our house. I'd seen some butterflies flitting about in the back garden so knew that there should be plenty around: we weren't disappointed.

One of the most frequently observed butterflies of the day was the Ringlet (see right and below). We must have saw dozens of them over the course of our two hour walk.
 

We took a route along farm tracks that took us past lots of patches of brambles, they were rather popular with the butterflies. My wife enjoyed watching me chasing after the butterflies trying to take pictures before they sped off into the wind. I caught sight of a few white butterflies but couldn't get near enough to photograph or identify them.

 We also saw plenty or Small Tortoiseshells (right) as well as a smaller number Red Admirals (below). I kept mixing them up and my wife had to keep me right. I'm not sure why I mix them up, must be all the black, white and orange or red on them, I'm a bit colour blind. I'm glad the butterfly book that I have lists them in the same section, makes me feel slightly better.

 We saw a few splashes of orange around too being  Commas. These seemed happier to pose for pictures in easily accessible places.

We left the farm track to cross onto a right of way back across the fields towards our house. we started to see a few more types of butterflies. Below roght is what i think is a Meadow Brown. It looks a bit drab compared to it's more colourful colleagues but I guess that's why its categorised as a brown!

A butterfly that can't be accused of being drab is the Gatekeeper. We only saw one of these, I don't think that I've ever saw one of these before.

We didn't spot any other types of butterflies for the rest of the walk though we did see a few groups of caterpillars in webs. There were also larger ones next to these, I think that they might be Peacock caterpillars though I'm not entirely sure (see below).

After seeing the caterpillars it was clear that there was some poor weather on the horizon. I assured my wife that it was heading away from us. Luckily we just made it home seconds before the heavens opened. It was very lucky for me as I don't think my wife would be too keen to join me on any more trips out.

Six butterfly species! Seven if you count the caterpillar.

What's in the garden this week?

 Now that I've got my identification book there's nothing to stop me getting out and doing some identifying and there's nowhere easier to get to than my back garden (there's sadly no butterflies in the house). I saw a butterfly flitting around next to my trellis that my blackberries are growing up and snapped it in flight from distance. Not a great photo but it allowed me to ID it as a small tortoiseshell. If anyone knows why thy are called tortoiseshells please let me know.

Next up was a Comma sitting on a nettle. Luckily it was happy to pose for me. Luckily not keeping on top of the weeding kept this little fellow happy. Took me a while to figure out what it was in the book, i thought it was one of the fritillarys.















Finally I thought I would put up a typical photo of the most common species in the garden, the lesser focused butterfly. Auto-focus seems to prefer the stationary plants to the quick moving critters. I could still make it out as being a Ringlet though for the distinctive rings on the underside of its wings. Any tips welcomed please for photographs.

Not bad evening though three species just outside my back door!