Wild Wild West

With the lovely weather continuing into early May it was a good time to head out to another of my favourite spring sites, the Cut-off Channel at Stoke Ferry about 50 miles west.  Arrived at the car park at the end of School Lane and instantly heard the ‘purring’ song of a Turtle Dove, a rare sound in the UK these days as their numbers have crashed in recent years.  A pleasant walk along the high banking through the trees to the open area where the rare Grizzled Skipper (Pyrgus malvae) can be found, one of only two places in the County.

Underwing shot of the tiny Grizzled Skipper, not much bigger than a thumbnail

Grizzled Skipper

I photographed four Grizzles, when I checked the images they were differently marked so not a bad score.  Another type of skipper was flying around as if fueled by an overdose of caffeine, this was slightly larger, a rather unfortunately named Dingy Skipper (Erynnis tages).  Took a while before I managed a few half decent shots of this speed freak, the first I have seen at this site.

My best shot ever of a Dingy Skipper underwing

Dingy? Why? It was first named Handley’s Small Brown Butterfly, not that much better

I had taken along the big zoom as well as the macro in the hope of photographing some bird life.  In the event it only got used once when a Lesser Whitethroat (Sylvia curruca) obliged by singing from the top of a dead bush.  This recently returned migrant from Africa is normally quite secretive only giving away it’s presence by the song which is best described as a rattle.

Lesser Whitethroat in full flow

A fresh Small Copper (Lycaena phaeas) on daisy steadfastly refused to open it’s wings

The Brown Argus (Aricia agestis) is not much bigger than the skippers but has a terrible attitude problem, attacks anything flying by!

A great day in the wild west.  Time to look closer to home.  Would the sun bring out an early Swallowtail at Hickling?  Only one way to find out, go look.  Sadly not, but the dragonflies put on a good show.  Not had one emerge from my garden pond this year only damselflies which is rather strange.

Broad-bodied Chaser (Libellula depressa) at Hickling. This is a fresh male, in time the body will turn blue

You may be thinking with all these images from my last two posts that everything is in abundance, sadly this is not the case.  I have seen pretty much all the butterfly species I have expected but the numbers are depressingly low.  Four different Grizzled Skippers is a great percentage for a Norfolk rarity but the ‘common’ butterflies are very scarce.  We have now had the odd day or two of heavy rain, hopefully summer will kick on.