A title like that should give the blog stats a boost. The ladies in question are of course Painted Lady butterflies, a migrant which has started turning up locally within the last week or so. The first I saw was on buddleia just outside my back garden in Wareham on Friday but there were a few more at Arne RSPB on the weekend. Fresh ones too. Also one at work today in, of all places, our Butterfly Garden.
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| Painted Lady, Arne |
Apart from a large Curlew flock, there was not much else to report from Arne this weekend by way of birds. The same could be said of my last few visits to Swineham, hoping but failing to photograph the first Marsh Harriers to fledge in Poole Harbour in half a century. A few Yellow-legged Gulls among a large roost of Black-heads have been about the best of it.
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| Painted Lady, Arne |
So butterflies have continued to be the main attraction. Good numbers of Lulworth Skippers were at Durlston Country Park last weekend, close to the eastern extremity of their tiny range in this country, which extends just a few miles along the Purbeck coast.
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| Lulworth Skipper, Durlston |
This will be a short week at work as our family holiday finally approaches - our first high summer trip to the Isles of Scilly, autumn being the usual option. Bucketfulls of sand will be the main attraction, but with a few pelagic trips booked, bucketfulls of seabirds may also feature. Hopefully not bucketfulls of sick though: I'm not a great sailor, but my good friend Matt Jones, over from New Zealand and sharing a house with us on St Mary's, has proper sea legs. And he's promised to drag me from the deck, prop me up on the gunwhales and point me in the direction of passing Wilson's Petrels if need be.
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| Lulworth Skipper, Durlston |
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