Had a day out today with Heath Fritillary, which would be a new species for me, the target species. I arrived at Belfairs Wood at c8.30 in lovely warm and sunny weather and quickly found White Admiral and a Silver-washed Fritillary, the latter, looking at the county website, potentially a first site record, so things were looking good. However very quickly it clouded over and the stubborn dark clouds which seemed to be only present over the wood, it was lovely blue sky in all directions, refused to move off and three hours later without success I decided to cut my losses and move on to nearby Hockley Woods to see if my luck would improve.
After about some 45 minutes of searching there, the clouds eventually started to break up and the sun started to warm things up and consequently the butterflies in the wood started to become active. However apart from a very brief flight view of a possible Heath Frit I still drew a blank and started to wonder if I'd just left it too late in their flight season and they were over for this year.
After about a further hour of searching in glorious sunshine, I decided to go back to Belfairs for one last try, with fortunately the warm and sunny weather continuing. Another hour was spent searching, with further sightings of the Silver-washed Fritillary and White Admirals, but still no Heath Fritillaries.
Just before giving up, it was now 16.30, I made one final sweep across the other side of the reserve in Dodds Grove and suddenly flushed an unfamiliar butterfly up from vegetation and I froze as it flew across the clearing, willing it to settle as it went. Knowing that it wasn't any of the common species I was happy that it was one but I wanted to see it perched and thankfully it duely obliged by landing on the far side of the clearing. A quick check through the bins confirmed it was indeed a Heath Fritillary and I managed to take a distant record shot of it before it took flight again but disappointly refused to settle again and disappeared off up into the trees and despite more searching was never relocated.
However after 8 hours of searching during which time I had given up all hope of connecting, I was more than delighted with just the brief view and another new species of butterfly.
