9th July - Old Winchester Hill, Hampshire

Another hot day and I wasn't intending to stay out too long, but I wanted to see if Old Winchester Hill had the same concentrations of butterflies that were present at Martin Down last Saturday.

With the temperature touching twenty five degrees as I pulled into the car park it was clearly going to be a warm one.  I set of along the top oath and coming out of the clump of hawthorn quickly found a Six spot Burnet on the Field Scabious amongst the grasses.

Marbled White were everywhere, maybe not like the concentrations seen at Martin, but an impressive sight nonetheless.  This male settled on a thistle flower in the grass.

An Essex Skipper on the flowering thyme.

Plenty of yellow grass on the top path under a azure blue sky.

I walked close to the brambles where alot of flowers were now gone over.  But where there were flowers there were butterflies, Meadow Brown and a single Comma and plenty of Gatekeeper.  In amongst them were Red Admiral, Peacock and several Painted Lady.

Skippers were busy amongst the grass, several Large Skipper and this Small Skipper.  I was to see a lot of these as I walked through the grass.

The Rosebay Willow-herb putting on a show.

The number of Small Copper at Martin were a surprise and there were at least five here at Old Winchester Hill today.

Rather than walk around the slope U stayed on the path to the fort.  This Small Tortoiseshell flew past me and then settled in the vegetation by the side of the path.

This Blackbird was either anting of sunbathing.  I hadn't realised I had caught a Meadow Brown flying past.

I walked up to the fort and then took the footpath down the south slope.

A small Heath close to the side of the path.

We had seen Chalkhill Blues at Martin on the weekend so I was hopeful there would be some here today.  As I walked down the slope they started to appear, pale blue butterflies flying very close to the ground.  They were also not stopping and I feared I wasn't going to get some shots, but then I found this two resting.

Then on cue the top blue opened its wings to show the lovely pale blue and brown colouring.

The top butterfly flew off leaving the other to continue to pose nicely.

In total there were thirty seven Chalkhills on the slope and having been satisfied with the shots I turned and walked back up the slope.  It was this walk that convinced me not to tackle the longer slopes back to the car park.  I struggled and was very pleased to reach the fort and the cooling breeze.

AS I walked around the moat a Dark-green Fritillary settled on the knapweed showing off the green wash on the underside that gives it the name.

Walking around the moat there were more skippers, Marbled Whites and Meadow Browns.  Brimstones were also appearing, they always seem to be the last to emerge on a day.

As was the case at Martin on Saturday the distant fields looked wonderful in the summer sunshine, the crops bleached a lovely colour.

Even though I wasn't going to walk down and the hills I did walk back along the slope.  The sides of the area were covered with yarrow and hemp acrimony.

Another Painted Lady attracted to the hemp acrimony.

Back on the top path it was pretty much of the same, Meadow Brown, Marbled White and Gatekeepers amongst the grass and on the bushes.  Wild flowers everywhere.

I walked to the gate that leads down the slope from the car park.  Looking down these Field Scabious had the perfect dark background.

It was now getting close to 11:00am and it was very warm.  I had been here two hours and managed to see 24 species, the same as the weekend at Martin.  But there were two species here, not seen at Martin

6th July - Titchfield Haven, Hampshire

Some interesting reports of waders over the weekend at Titchfield so I decided to go back and see if they were still around.  After checking in I walked around the sea wall.  The tide was out and the rocks were showing and these created rock pools that the Common Terns were fishing in.

 I went to the Meon Shore hide once more and in front of the hide on the small island the Common Tern was still on the nest as was a Black-headed Gull, but there was a very young Black-headed Gull chick that was out in the open and very much in danger of being picked off by a Lesser Black-backed Gull.

One of the Black-headed Gulls had taken one of the perches close by and was constantly calling.

A Common Tern was flying around the scrape with a fish.

Usually the terns bring the fish in for partner or young, but in this case it started to swallow the fish itself.

And eventually swallowed it.

The Spotted Redshank, one of the waders seen yesterday was still on the south scrape tucked away on the right hand side, feeding in the deeper water.

There were also three Common Sandpipers, but they stayed resolutely by the causeway too far away from the hide.

Some more antics from the Common Terns, this time one flies in to the small island in front of the hide and immediately started calling.

Then making its way to the nest area still calling and eventually they change over brooding duties and I was able to see two eggs.  I still do not hold out much hope for the chicks if they hatch.

Settled down for the duty.

I walked around to the Pumfrett Hide, but stopped at the new pond that is now visible after the clearance work last winter.  There were Black-tailed Skimmers and in the reeds I found a Southern Hawker.

At Darter's Dip, the Small Red-eyed Damselfly was still present sitting once again on the pond weed.

From the hide you could just about see two Little Ringed Plover through the heat haze on the mud at the northern end of the scrape, there was a slo a Common Sandpiper catching flies on the edge of the water.  On the posts on the south scrape a Sandwich Tern was amongst the Common Terns.  Two House Martins were also collecting mud on the south scrape.

The heat haze was a big problem for photography so I went back to the pools to see if I could find the Norfolk Hawker, and it wasn't hard to find, and it soon settled on the reeds.

Once again a close up of the lovely green head.

And the perfect pose on a reed stem.

I walked back to the Meon Shore and it was now very hot.  I stopped at the new pond and watched the Southern Hawker chasing the Black-tailed Skimmers.  At one point the hawker pushed the skimmer into the water and seemed to be trying to push it under, but the skimmer got away.

Finally the Southern Hawker settled on one of the perches.

Back in the hide little had changed and like the Pumfrett the heat haze was a challenge.  Of interest was this Sandwich Tern that came a little closer.

A Common Tern was buzzing the Sandwich Tern, hence the posture, it didn't want to give up its perch.

Finally it left the post and headed out to sea.

It was a short visit, curtailed mostly by the heat and the heat haze.

4th July - Martin Down, Hampshire - Part Two

So faced with what to do we opted to keep going and pretty much circum navigate the reserve.  This entailed walking down to the car park at the north end of the reserve just off the A354.  We walked through the grassland of the rifle ranges with more Dark-green Fritillaries buzzing about.  As we approached the car park there was a Holly Blue around the gate and the surrounding bramble.

We crossed the road and made our way up the footpath and then turned right into another wonderful grass field, full of knapweed and thistles.  It was though still quite overcast.

I realised it would be good to try and photograph every species of butterfly seen, so stopped for this open winged Gatekeeper.

While this Meadow Brown appears to have fallen a sleep in its food.

The Small Coppers kept coming and were performing brilliantly on the flower heads, both on the wooded side of the path and amongst the grasses.

Butterflies we hadn't encountered on the walk along the dyke started to appear,Large Whites frustratingly at the back of the bramble and unreachable, but the Small Whites were a little bit easier.

At last a settled if rather worn Small Skipper.

And completing the set of currently available skippers a Large Skipper.

Ian was keen to find Purple Hairstreak and was shaking the lower branches of the oak trees.  He didn't initially flush any hairstreaks, but did disturb this Scarlet Tiger Moth.

Peacocks were everywhere, we managed to count 54, but there was probably more that we just didn't see, they seemed to be everywhere.

The bramble was turning up new butterflies this one of five Comma seen.

This Small Copper sat nicely on a grass seed head with the perfect background.  We counted 23 Small Copper all around the reserve.

Finally Ian's shaking of the oak tree branches paid off and we found this Purple Hairstreak at eye level on the oak leaves.

We saw three individuals but no doubt there were plenty more amongst the many oaks along the path.

By now the sun had broken through the clouds and it was warming up, this bringing many more butterflies about.

The path then would turn south and continue around the reserve, but there was a gate where the old Roman road headed east.  Immediately on the other side of the gate there were tall thistles and ragwort and these were attracting many butterflies so we had to go in and see juts what was about.

First up was another lovely Dark-green Fritillary, this time conveniently nectaring on the thistles and showing the lovely green wash on the underside that gives the butterfly its name.

Only the second Painted Lady of the day was nectaring on the Ragwort.

And one of eight Red Admiral, just resting.

Marbled Whites had an incredible day, we counted 111, but there must have been many more.  At one point we walked through thegrasses and there were clouds of the Marbled White and Meadow Brown coming up in front of us, a wonderful sight.

This rather worn Marbled White nectaring on a thistle flower with the perfect background.

But as we watched the butterflies we were treated to a display by a moth, a Hummingbird Hawkmoth to be precise.  It hung around the thistles and allowed us to play with shutter speeds as it nectared like it's namesake the hummingbird around us.

Nectaring amongst the thistle flowers even at one six thousand of a second shutter speed the wings were difficult to freeze.

Love the background on this one.

These are the closest I will get to photographing one of my favourite birds in this country.

We came back on to the reserve elated by the hawkmoth encounter and then made our way through the grass to the road.  On the way we flushed so many butterflies it was wonderful to see them on what was now a beautiful day.

We had to search for the gate on the other side of the road and on finding it we had to scramble through the bramble and branches.  Coming out the other side we were treated to some other wonderful views that were transformed by shooting them in black and white.  Big sky country, endless grass and lovely white wispy clouds.

And another view in colour.

This was my attempt to capture the wonderful array of wild flowers amongst the grass.  Unfortunately it doesn't do it justice.

The round walk was a distance of ten kilometres or six miles in old money.  It was a wonderful day and as we got back to the cars a Quail was still calling from the same field.

A total of twenty four butterfly species seen and these are the counts, from a wonderful day.