Sunday 22 July 2012

Black Park, Braddenham & Yoesden Bank - 22 July 2012

The first real day with sunshine forecast all day, and we were still a bit too hung over from the previous nights wader ringing, so we just wandering around a few local butterfly sites, with planned visits tomorrow and Tuesday night to Stanwell Moor ringing site before four days at Icklesham.

We first dropped into Black Park where managed to see eight Silver-washed Fritillaries and three White Admirals, plus a Purple Emperor which did the usual early morning visit to some abandoned dog poo, which thankfully had not been cleared up!

Purple Emperor

White Admiral

Our next stopped off at Braddenham passing about thirty Red Kites hanging over a freshly ploughed field at West Wycombe. Butterflies were very active and not settling, with about eight Dark Green Fritillaries, Marbled Whites and many Meadow Browns.

Dark Green Fritillary

After a stop off at the garden centre cafe by Hill Fire Caves we headed off to Yoesden Bank where there were a lot of Meadow Browns in varying condition, some Gatekeepers and Ringlets, with fair number of Marbled Whites and eight male Chalkhill Blues.

Chalkhill Blue