Frits at Fineshade

Alan Shorrock and I visited Fineshade Wood today in the hope that we might see some county Dark Green Fritillaries at one of their newly occupied sites. Unfortunately for us we failed to find any despite several hours of searching. While it might be easy to blame the often grey conditions for this there were enough butterflies of other species about to suggest that we were just unlucky.

Silver-washed Fritillary and Gatekeeper.

Despite the Dark Green deficiency there were plenty of their larger cousins about with good numbers of Silver-washeds flitting along the rides. Browns and whites showed in good numbers and we saw the three species of skippers typical of July. The best butterflies showed only briefly with Purple Emperor, Purple Hairstreak and White Admiral restricted to brief views of single individuals. Other species noted on our travels were Red Admiral, Comma, Small Tortoiseshell and a tatty looking Painted Lady.

Painted Lady and Lrge Skipper.

Other wildlife observed included three Ravens, lots of Common Blue damselflies, a Brown and a Southern Hawker.

Six-spotted Burnet and Speckled Wood.

From Fineshade we moved on to Fermyn Wood CP where an attempt to see Willow Emeralds also met with failure. Once again a relative helped ease the pain of dipping and we saw two Emerald Damselflies which are one of my favourite species. Numbers of dragons and damsels seemed low though the skies had turned cloudy by now which perhaps explained things. Singles of Four-spotted Chaser and a Brown Hawker and three Ruddy Darters were the only dragons. Damsels were slightly better represented with Banded Demoiselles, an Azure, Common Blues and Blue-tailed joining the Emeralds on the list.

Emerald Damselfly and Ruddy Darters

Of the butterflies recorded further sightings of Silver-washed provided the highlight while of the other wildlife seen a brief view of a Raven was the only other thing of note.