Gillian invited me to come down to the "Oversley wood" purple emperor event hosted by the warwickshire butterfly conservation http://www.warwickshire-butterflies.org.uk/. as it is a 2 hour drive i arrived an hour early to have a look around part of the wood, before the guided walk starts to hopefully see the p emperors .
after a 15 minute walk i found a small meadow area surrounded by trees and in the middle i spotted my first ever Marbled White, a species i have always wanted to see! i took about 40 shots of a prestine specimen before finding a second one!
the second marbled then flew off and landed on a thistle flower and started feeding. by the time i got close enough to shoot ,another butterfly landed which turned out to be my second new species of the day! a small skipper!
to say i was happy is an understatement, 2 new species in less than half an hour! with the rest of the days events still to look forward to.
i then walked back to the carpark to meet up with the rest of the party for the guided walk. in total 41 people turned up all wanting to see the purple emperors, which i believe is a record for a branch event!
as the walk started, after a few minutes i spotted my 3rd new species of the day, a white admiral but couldnt manage any decent shots, this was probably the best shot i got -
as the walk continued through the wood ,someone spotted a newly emerged purple hairstreak, my 4th new species of the day! in not very good lighting i managed to take a good series of shots of this beautifull specimen!
it was at this point Gill arrived, late as usuall!!!!!! just as the light disappeared so she could not get any decent images! she was not happy!
The hunt for the purple emperors which we all hoped to see "grounded" feeding on salts on the paths was not going too well, not a single one spotted ! but we did find good numbers of Silver Washed Fritillarys all along the paths feeding on bramble flowers, which was new species #5 for me !
The event leader suggested that we go back to the meadow where i shot the marbled white, as white letter hairstreaks had been seen in the trees near the path, on arrival about 6 wl hairstreaks were seen in the elm tree but too high up to photograph unfortunatly, but yet another new species for me #6 for the day!
and the best was yet to come!
So this is how your butterfly obsession started.lol
ReplyDeleteFantastic series of shots I especially like the Silver Washed Fritillary.