Sunday June 24

Warm and sunny from the start. Given the time of year this post was never going to be about birds, so I can quickly get them out of the way. There were two Reed Warblers singing, one at the pond and one at the dragonfly pools. Meanwhile at the Flashes the water level is receding fast and the only waders were 20 Lapwings and two Green Sandpipers. We also flushed a Little Owl from the boundary hedge.

Much more interesting were insects, with butterflies taking centre stage when Dave drew my attention to a first for Morton Bagot. He had spotted a tiny butterfly at the top of a young elm in the hedgerow along the footpath west of the flash field. It was a White-letter Hairstreak. I had long hoped that one of these would be found here, but it still came as a pleasant surprise.

White-letter Hairstreak in shadow

White-letter Hairstreak with the sun shining on it

Slightly frustratingly I couldn't get a clear shot of it except when it was in partial silhouette. There may have been at least one more present, but after considerable neck straining we eventually decided to try again another day.

It was actually party time for butterflies until then, with 52 newly emerged Marbled Whites and at least 20 Small Skippers on view for the first time this year. The grassland butterflies were flying in big numbers; 200 Meadow Browns, 180 Ringlets, 40 Large Skippers, five Small Tortoiseshells, eight Large Whites, 20 Small Heaths, and one Small White.

Marbled White

Small Skippers

The small Skippers require careful consideration here because two near identical species, Small and Essex, both occur here. We always see a few we are not sure about.

Probably Small Skipper

Usually Essex Skippers emerge later than Small, but from mid-July you should be seeing both.

Continuing with the debatable insects theme, we saw lots of dragonflies too. I photographed what I thought might be a male White-legged Damselfly. However, on reflection it is probably a mature female Common Blue (I think). In fact it turned out to be a female Azure Damselfly (thanks to Peter Reeves for pointing out that the black lines on the sides of the thorax ruled out Common Blue).

Female Azure Damselfly

We have also been looking at darters and decided they were all Ruddy Darters.

Ruddy Darter

However, one of them was actually a Common Darter.

Common Darter

We finally reached the dragonfly pools where several red-eyed damselflies were too distant for satisfactory shots. But despite the rather early date and level stance, the pattern of blue on the final three segments of the abdomen suggests they were Small Red-eyed Damselflies and not the species we had been hoping for.

Small Red-eyed Damselfly

Small Red-eyed Damselfly

I also noticed an interesting looking bumblebee. It probably just a Common Carder Bee, but its pale haired thorax did make me wonder if it was something rarer.

Carder Bee sp

As for beetles, all I can say is that we saw an impressive one.

Possibly Strawberry Seed Beetle - Harpalus rufipes

I have come up with a tentative identification (see caption) but I'll try submitting it to the irecord website in the hope someone either verifies it or tells me what it actually is.