Saturday 22 May 2010

Butterfly class at Springhead


Michael Blencowe conducted a Butterfly Id class at Woods Mill, the HQ of the Sussex Wildlife Trust. An excellent course ‘performed’ by Michael with his usual humour and containing excellent tips for differentiating between some of the similar butterflies such as whites, skippers and fritillaries. Copious notes were made.
Common Blue
At noon we headed for some practice at Springhead. There we met up with Neil Hulme and the dynamic duo guided us round a field which is rated as one of the best sites in the UK for number of butterfly species.
Duke of Burgundy
Today we spotted 15: Duke of Burgundy (2), Small Blue, Common Blue, Green Hairstreak, Orange Tip, Small White, Green-veined white, Peacock, Red Admiral, Dingy Skipper, Comma, Brimstone, Speckled Wood, Brown Argus, Small Heath.
I finally got my Green Hairstreak photos. Several were seen and I waited by one particular tree which a specimen was protecting, waiting for it to come within range of my 400mm lens (200 with a doubler). It didn’t show with the sunlight catching the iridescent green scales so I had to use flash fill to remove the shadow on its side.

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