Oh You Fritty Things

Yet another road trip today and another county in what is turning out to be a very good year. Three of us popped down to Hockley Wood where we were hoping to find a Heath Fritillary or two which would take my year's frit total up to an unprecedented six species ( and I'm not including the Duke.).

Heath Fritillaries.

Soon after our arrival we did indeed spot a frit but it was a Silver-washed which shot through without pausing. Not that much further down the path we encountered the first of what turned out to be many Heath Fritillaries. In stark contrast to last year's visit when we struggled to find one there seemed to be fifty or more flitting around a sunlit ride. Other species were present too of course, with so much hot sunshine on offer it was no surprise. Commonest were Ringlets and Meadow Browns which were joined by a few Speckled Woods. The undoubted highlight amongst the other species for me was a White Admiral which eventually posed rather well. Several Large Skippers also made their way on to the list while a Holly Blue showed briefly.

White Admiral and Large Skipper.

Our original plan after this was to go over to Canvey Island for some dragonfly watching but a failure to find any suitable parking spots meant a detour to Wat Tyler Country Park instead. As the sun was still beaming down and given our proximity to many large towns it came as no surprise to find that the park was very busy. An additional problem was that many of the ponds appeared to have dried out and even the ones that did have water were overgrown with reedmace and difficult to view.

Holly Blue and Essex Skipper.

Butterflies supplied some of the early interest with Marbled Whites and Essex Skippers featuring. Common and Ruddy Darters were found too, the latter were my first for the year. Holly Blue and a Small Tortoiseshell, my first for some time, soon followed. Finally we came across one of our target species, a Southern Migrant Hawker which was later joined by a further two but sadly none of them settled down. Walking on a little further resulted in another sighting and although this one did land briefly it was too obscured by vegetation to allow any photographs.

Marbled White and Ruddy Darter.

Someway down the path we encountered a pond that actually had some water in it which held the second of our targeted species, a fine male Scarce Emerald. I had seen a couple a little earlier in the month in Norfolk but this time around I didn't have to fight off thousands of attacking mosquitoes. This pond was rather productive and Azure, Large Red, Common Blue and Blue-tailed were also viewed. Having seen all of the species that we wanted to and enjoyed good views even if we couldn't take any pics of the Southern Migrants we decided to head home. Our journey was broken by a visit to a pub but it's nice to be able to toast what was yet another very good day.

Scarce Emerald and Emperor.