After several rather mediocre days today was bright, sunny and warm with nothing more than a slight breeze, ideal conditions for butterflies. Thankfully they were out in much larger numbers than any other day this year.
We went for the circular walk around Itchenor so the first field was just south of the lane of rather large houses. This had been planted with Rape, the flowers had gone some time ago and the seed pods were well developed. For some reason this was attracting very large numbers of Large Whites which were everywhere over the field flitting about, hardly stopping. Why they were attracted there wasn’t clear.
Further on we saw two solitary Tortoiseshell butterflies, one of which was kind enough to stay still long enough for a picture. Naturally there were plenty of Meadow Browns about, too many to count in too many places, every hedge row had a few.
Closer to the Harbour along the path that leads there were these Marbled Whites. Again, not it single numbers but lots of them, there were more along the Harbour path as well.
There have been so few butterflies this year, that’s not just me that’s had this experience, many other observers have too. It was, therefore, so pleasing to see so many in a single walk, a real tonic. Perhaps they might recover this year after all.