Jul 012012
The first sunshine for weeks apparently.
Having just come back from Rheims in France on Friday 29th June, I was hoping for some good weather in order to try and photograph my final British resident Butterfly, the Holly Blue. I was really Living in Hope. Several of the villages not far from where I live have excellent habitat for Holly Blue, I simply just needed some warm sunshine and a little luck that one or two were still on the wing from the spring. No such luck, however, so will have to hold out until the second brood later in July. Assuming of course that we have some decent weather soon. The wettest June on record no less. At least we did see a few species of butterfly, Large Skipper, Ringlet & Meadow Brown, all of which appeared to be freshly emerged. Around one of the local Derbyshire Wildlife Reserves we had a single female Mandarin and another female Mandarin with a brood of six recently hatched downy young, a very pleasant sight.. Plenty of Spotted Orchids and a few Twayblade were still in flower. Kingfisher, Spotted Flycatcher, Nuthatch, Chiffchaff, Blackcap, Great Spotted & Green Woodpecker were present. Updated Year List currently stands at 215
Female Mandarin – Ticknall
Female Mandarin with brood – Ticknall
Large Skipper – Foremark Reservoir
Meadow Brown, male – Fotremark Reservoir
