A Day of Butterflies

Last year, Colin and I went down to Hampshire, targeting butterflies over the Bank Holiday weekend. So I thought we'd do it again this year, and went on  Saturday as it was likely to be the best weather-wise.
No need for an early start thankfully, as I was still a bit tired from Chelsea, an we got down to Noar Hill around 9.30. It was fairly warm and sunny, which was good, but not excessive, which was even better. There were a few Early Purple orchids still in flower on the northern slopes, and a reasonable number of Cowslips as well. A few Common Spotted orchids were starting to emerge, but Twayblade numbers seemed a bit low based on previous visits. I suspect last years hot summer and a fairly dry winter has had an impact.
Good numbers of Small Blues again-its a bit surprising that I never saw any hear until last year. Lots of  Dingy Skippers, a few Common Blues and Green Hairstreaks, abundant Brimstones and a few whites were seen. Took a while to find, but we eventually found around eight Duke of Burgundys, including a couple of pairs.

A search for Musk and Frog orchids wasn't successful, but there were a few White Helleborines in the usual bit of wood, though numbers are still low since the scrub clearance some years back.

Bentley Wood was rather popular again, particularly the eastern clearing which is looking very good these days. Lots of Brimstones again, and plenty of Fritillaries. The log book implied that Pearl Bordered were the commonest, but it seemed to me that Small Pearl Bordered were. However this was based primarily on my assumption that the brighter fresher individuals were Small Pearl whereas the worn faded ones were going to be Pearl having emerged some weeks ago. We only got close views of a couple though. Bonuses were Marsh Fritillary again, and a Duke of Burgundy.

The only dragonfly of the day was a rather brief glimpse of a Broad Bodied Chaser.
There were several Grizzled Skippers here-not sure if I've seen them at Bentley before. One was very obliging.

We ended the day at Martin Down. It was a bit cool and breezy at times but generally remained bright and sunny.
One Turtle Dove was around the Sillen Lane car park, but proved elusive.
The Greater Butterfly orchids were found again, though in far fewer numbers. There did seem to be a lot of non flowering rosettes.

Huge quantities of Small Blues everywhere, and Common and Adonis Blues were out in force, but we only managed to locate one Brown Argus. We also found Small heath to be plentiful, but Grizzled and Dingy Skippers were hard and we only saw a few. Expecting, based on reports to see lots of Marsh Fritillaries I was a bit disappointed to find half a dozen in one small area at the end of the track west of Sillen Lane.
We paid our respects to the Burnt orchids. The main clump had 13 flower spikes this year, and we found six others in flower plus a couple of rosettes. Unfortunately a few had been trampled, a shame they couldn't have some sort of protective barrier.