With decent weather in short supply this summer, I took the opportunity to head south today given the reasonable looking forecast. First stop was Wrecclesham where an early walk round to suss out the site produced the surprise of this Beautiful Demoiselle.
Further searching of the site produced my first Large Skipper, Meadow Browns and Common Blue of the year, and then to my delight I eventually found my intended target a Glanville Fritillary. With their natural range in Britain now being predominantly confined to the Isle of Wight, this population here in Surrey was introduced some 10 years ago and seems to have taken hold now, and regardless of their origins, they were a welcome new species for me.
As the day warmed up, a few sunny spells brought more up from the grass and I saw up to a dozen more over the next hour or so, with the odd one pausing long enough for a photo before heading off again across the meadow.
I eventually tore myself away from the Glanvilles wanting to make the most of the day, and headed off to a section of the Basingstoke Canal between Fleet and Aldershot. Parking up by Farnborough Airfield, in more hope than expectation, I walked the canal bank westwards, but with the now predominantly overcast conditions I only saw a few damselflies plus a brief couple of dragonflies.
I then decided to check out what appeared to be a parking area back towards Aldershot which I had passed earlier, and my hope that this would give access to the canal aswell was confirmed as I pulled in, and better still the sun had just appeared again. I quickly made my way down to the canal and after crossing a metal bridge to the towpath along the far bank, I was immediately greeted with the sight of a Brilliant Emerald Dragonfly patrolling a section of the water, the second new species of the day! I watched it for about 15 minutes as it flew back and forth patrolling the canal and a small bay, often flying quite high up in the manner of a hawker before it eventually disappeared up into the trees as the sun went back in.
With time pressing, I decided to move on and headed off homewards but first made an intended detour into south Essex in the hope of getting far better views of Heath Fritillaries than I had got there last year, and also to hopefully get some decent pics too. Going on info gleaned from the web, this time I headed to Starvelarks Wood, by Daws Heath and on reaching the first clearing by the pylons I was immediately greeted by the sight of numerous Heath Fritillaries flying low over the top of the vegetation. There must have been easily 40+ individuals in this one small area all enjoying the now virtually unbroken sunshine, and although they were seemingly constantly on the move I did manage to grab a few pics when the odd one paused briefly, and which show well the differences from the similar looking Glanvilles, with Heath Fritillaries lacking the spots on the underwing and the bottom edge of the upper hindwing.
