Come Back Summer, All is Forgiven

Yucky conditions prevailed today as our untypical summer warmth gave way to grey and wet weather. Having kept an eye on the many weather forecasts I knew that today would be far from ideal for nature spotting but I decided to have an afternoon stroll around Priors Hall.

Brown Argus and Common Blue.

Scoping the quarry lake revealed three Common Sandpipers and I also heard a Little Ringed Plover. Two juvenile Dabchicks keeping company with a parent suggests that a pair have successfully bred. Apart from a few Lapwings there was not a great deal else to report birdwise though a Brown Hare was seen racing across the muddy hills.

Common Blue and Blue-tailed Damsels.

Despite the less than ideal weather I found many Common Blue butterflies roosting amongst the grass, certainly over a hundred and perhaps even more. In with them was a far smaller number of Brown Argus with about fifteen being seen. Perhaps not surprisingly there were few other species on view but I did record sightings of three Meadow Browns, three Gatekeepers, a Small Heath and two Small Whites.

Ruddy and Common Darters.

An enjoyable feature of today's walk was the number of toadlets hopping and walking around the site, I would imagine that the damp conditions were very much to their liking. I suspect that dragons and damsels enjoyed the weather less and this was reflected in the low numbers observed. Common Blues were, rather appropriately, the most numerous species and there were rather a lot of Blue-tailed too. A single Small Red-eyed showed very well and I also found two each of Common and Ruddy Darters.

Toadlet and Six-spotted Burnet.

One final thing to mention were the three Six-spotted Burnet moths seen feeding rather sluggishly on ragwort and thistle flowers which allowed a very close approach.

Priors Pond and dragonfly exuvial case.