A great butterfly transect and more at Cranford Park today

The bramble bushes are losing their flowers now....

 

 

so a lot of the butterflies on this mornings transect were instead feeding on the buddleia and thistles with the exception of the meadow grasses loving brown butterflies.....

 

I had a fantastic 85 minute butterfly walk for the UKBMS transect, with my highest total so far this year.......a whooping 223 butterflies, yes 223 !!!

 That's more than double the amount seen on last Saturdays transect. 

 

Todays tally....

223 butterflies / 10 species

 

Small Skipper x 41

Large Skipper x 2

Green-veined White x 22

Small Copper x 2

Red Admiral x 3

Comma x 15

Speckled Wood x 15

Gatekeeper x 55

Meadow Brown x 67

Ringlet x 1

 

and here are photos of some of the beauties seen today.....

Large Skipper - underwing

tatty worn Ringlet

male Green-veined White

Commas

mating Gatekeepers

male Small Skipper

Small Copper

mating Small Skippers

Red Admiral

As you can see from some of the photos above, it is now time for some species to mate. I watched these two Green-veined Whites below. The female is on the leaf and the male was attempting to mate with her. She kept flicking up her abdomen. This was basically telling the male 'not tonight thanks'....

 

 

I also found some caterpillars, these below are the larvae of the Small Tortoiseshell....

 

The meadows were alive with not only butterflies, but hundreds of Soldier Beetles, crickets and grasshoppers and this fresh looking Black and Yellow Longhorn beetle....

 

I had absolutely no luck looking for the Little Owls again today, but according to Martyn there were four photographers checking the nest tree this morning before I arrived. I wonder if they were successful ?

 

I did see three Common Buzzards and a Red Kite soaring over. And of course I spent some time in the meadows watching our new Kestrel family. I still think there are four fledglings. They weren't flying around too much today, more time was spent sitting on the tree guards or the scrubby bushes....

 

Spot the Kestrel......

 The Cinnabar caterpillars are bigger and fatter now, and it wont be long before they drop off the ragwort, bury under the soil, pupate and spend the winter there....

 

 

Next Saturday, the 15th of July, I will be leading a guided butterfly walk through part of the park.

 It will be about 90 minutes long with refreshments available in St Dunstans church afterwards.

Meet at 11am by the Information Centre.

Maybe I'll see some of you there.

 

 

 

 

WL Hairstreak and the new Kestrel family at Cranford Park

I was at Cranford Park on Friday evening for an hour but the Little Owls are still eluding me. I can hear them, but I just cannot see them. I was back at the park at 9am Saturday and spent another hour looking for the owls, again with no luck.

However Saturday was going to prove to be much luckier than I first anticipated.

 

Some of the Lords and Ladies have survived being nibbled and are finally turning in to berries....

 

 

In the meadow there are lots of ragwort and almost every single plant had these colourful critters on them. The caterpillars of the Cinnabar moth......

 

I didn't spend much time 'hover-ating' on Saturday but this little specimen caught my eye. It's a Sphaerophoria scripta. My second of the season.....

 

The butterfly transect was a good success again, even if it was partly cloudy and a little windy at times during the 1hr 45 minutes it took to walk the set route around the park.

After last weekend photographing Ringlets at Maple Lodge NR it was a very pleasant surprise to find two Ringlets at Cranford Park. I have never seen one at Cranford, so it was a real bonus to add them to my count. I also had my first Gatekeepers of the year, BUT the best sighting of all was a stunning fresh female White-letter Hairstreak, my second ever only sighting at the park.

 

So the total tally for Saturdays butterfly transect was 109 butterflies of 13 species....

 

Small Skipper x 26

Large Skipper x 2

Green-veined White x 12

Holly Blue x 2

Red Admiral x 16

Peacock x 1

Comma x 13

Speckled Wood x 6

Gatekeeper x 6 - first of the year

Meadow Brown x 21

Ringlet x 2 - first of the year

Small Heath x 1

White-letter Hairstreak x 1 - first of the year

 

A very very healthy count.

 

 

Gatekeeper underwing

Gatekeeper - head shot

Gatekeeper open wing - male

 

Speckled Wood

Speckled Woods copulating

 

Small Skipper

Small Skipper - male

Comma

Comma

 

Green-veined White - male

Ringlet - female

and the star of the day....

a very fresh female White-letter Hairstreak.......

 

 

Below is how they get their name. The white letter 'W' on the bottom underwing....

 

After the excitement of the Hairstreak I met up with Nathalie and John and pointed them in the right direction, where they both also eventually saw the little beauty too. Later in the day, going back past the same patch of thistles, I was a little disappointed to not re-finding it, and hopefully this will be the first of many sightings this season.

 

Nearly all of the umbellifers were attracting Soldier Beetles.....

 

 

and in the alley way by Roseville Road I found a female Stag Beetle wandering along. She was moving fine but does seem to have sustained some injury to her head ?

 

My last wildlife sighting of the day was this Fox which appeared in the Headland area.....

 

 

Nathalie had asked me during the week if the Kestrels had yet fledged. I saw one adult on Friday evening, and initially thought, compared to the last few years sightings, that it was maybe a week too early for the fledglings to be out......but I was wrong.

During the transect I heard the familiar sound of a calling juvenile and looked up to see three of them sitting in a dead tree by the river. One quick call to Nathalie and John and it wasn't long before the three of us were trying to count and establish how many juveniles we have this year. We think there are definitely four, possibly five.

There were not only frequenting the dead tree but were also using the tree guards in the meadows as viable perches. The same scenario that we get year after year at Cranford Park. They will hang around the meadows for several weeks, honing their hovering, hunting and flying skills. The best way to see them is to walk up the main grass path from the car park towards the Cranford Lane entrance, and check every tree guard and shrub. They will also use the grass paths to hunt for crickets and grasshoppers, even the odd dragonfly and butterfly.

So I will not apologise for the overload of photos. Everyone who knows me knows the Kestrel is my favourite bird of prey and I always get a thrill seeing the new juveniles at Cranford Park.

 

 

A completely successful day, in more ways than one. White-letter Hairstreak, Stag Beetle, Fox and newly fledged Kestrels. Cranford Park wildlife at it's complete best.