Today I popped to Grimley with TS to see what was about. Whilst there we recorded 2 Little Egrets, 11 Common Tern (7 juveniles) and a family party of 5 Oystercatchers (3 juv).
The highlight though came in the shape of a single Clouded Yellow that was darting about over the clover covered causeway. It was the first time I had seen this migrant butterfly in Worcestershire in over 10 years so needless to say I was dead pleased!
On the way back from Grimley we nipped over to the local patch to check on the colony of Purple Hairstreak butterflies at Stanklyn Lane. After a while we picked up 2 Purple Hairstreaks flitting around the top of a mature Ash.
Elsewhere on the patch the juvenile Little Owl was showing well.
Common Tern (juveniles)
Wednesday 7th August - Shenstone:
Today I spent a 2nd consecutive afternoon in the company of Tony.... it's no wonder I needed a stiff drink on the evening! Spurred on by the previous day's Clouded Yellow sighting, we undertook a couple of walks on the patch looking for butterflies.
Our first walk was across the gallops field where there were an incredible 30+ Silver Y moths present. The other notable here was a single Brown Argus butterfly.
From the gallops we headed over to walk the Butts Lane field & set-aside. This turned out very productive with 1♀ Brown Argus, 5 Common Blues (4♂, 1♀), 1 Essex Skipper, 1 Peacock, 1 Small Skipper, Small Copper and the ubiquitous Whites all noted. The Common Blues were particularly pleasing as I had not recorded a single one on patch up until this visit.
Also noted at Butts Lane was a Silver Y and a Yellow Shell moth.
Yellow Shell
Common Blue (♂)
Common Blue (♀)
Good to see you finding some Buterflies there Jase :-)
ReplyDeleteWere the Terns at Captains pool ?
Cheers Warren!
ReplyDeleteNah mate the terns were at Grimley. We have been having a single adult Common Tern visiting Captains Pool this summer though
The Clouded Yellows are a real treat this year Jason. Pleased you got one, hopefully you'll get more.
ReplyDelete