Buttery flies and a woodpecker

Great Spotted Woodpecker, Dendrocopos major

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On Friday Arundel Wildlife and Wetland Trust had late opening until 6:30pm which I took advantage of. A Great Spotted Woodpecker appeared high in the tree beside the woodland bird feeder. Earlier I visited Angmering Woods hoping for an early Orange-tip. This Spring butterfly has still not been reported anywhere. Saturday and Sunday I returned to Angmering Woods. There were many male Brimstones and several females, which are white in flight. There were also Commas and a Red Admiral. Several times I saw three male Brimstones tumbling together with a fourth in view. It is easy to see how this “buttery fly” is thought to have given its name to a group of Lepidoptera comprising about 20,000 species. When the males meet each other they fly together very briefly, not wasting energy fighting, perhaps long enough to determine that the other is not a female. Unlike Commas, Red Admirals and Peacocks, the Brimstones do not appear to protect a small territory, instead they travel along woodland rides and glades in search of nectar and females.

Angmering Woods:

bracket fungus

King Alfred's Cake (a fungus), Daldinia concentrica

Hoverfly, Eristalis species

Red Campion, Silene dioica

Snowdrop, Galanthus species

Arundel WWT:

Black-headed Gull, Chroicocephalus ridibundus

Blue Tit, Cyanistes caeruleus

Great Tit, Parus major

Nuthatch, Sitta europaea

Robin, Erithacus rubecula

Trumpeter Swans, Cygnus buccinator -
returned after their flood holiday at Slimbridge

Water Rail, Rallus aquaticus

Water Vole, Arvicola amphibius

Angmering Woods:

Brimstone, Gonepteryx rhamni on Lesser Celandine

Brimstone, Gonepteryx rhamni

Buzzard, Buteo buteo

Common Carder Bumblebee, Bombus Pascuorum

Mandarin Duck, Aix galericulata
on trout pond, Arundel

Brimstone in flight

Brimstone in flight

Comma, Polygonia c-album

hard fungus on log

Lesser Celandines, Ranunculus ficaria

tunnel of leaf miner moth larva

Wood Anemone, Anemone nemorosa

Wood Violet, Viola riviniana