THE HEAT IS ON

Had another bash at purple emperor spotting on Monday at Dene Park,had a couple of brief sightings in the air and several purple hairstreaks were about but no photo opportunities,had to be content with silver washed fritillaries and white admirals.

SILVER WASHED FRITILLARY

 BACKLIT SWF

SWF NECTARING ON BRAMBLE

WHITE ADMIRAL

LARGE WHITE
In the evening I was invited to view some yellow birds nest plants,having never heard of them let alone seen one I did not need asking twice,they are a parasitic plant living among beech leaf litter and are fairly uncommon in Kent,though I have since seen them mentioned on Greenies blog.

YELLOW BIRDS NEST PLANTS,there were three patches that we were shown with over a hundred plants in two of them.

LATTICE HEATH  a day flying moth of open grassland was seen nearby along with buzzard and yellowhammer.
Tuesday morning at Samphire Hoe a young black redstart was on the sea wall early on.

JUVENILE BLACK REDSTART
The hot weather also brought the lizards out to sunbathe on the timber rails near the office

EYE OF THE LIZARD.

The Chalk Hill Blues are now out in force at Lydden Downs, it is nigh on impossible to count them as there are so many all on the move at once but there are hundreds of them.

CHB female

CHB male

CHALK HILL BLUE EXTRAVAGANZA

SIX SPOT BURNET

This GATEKEEPER made it to my wildlife garden this week,along with large skipper,marbled white,meadow brown,ringlet,comma and red admiral.

GREENBOTTLE FLY

Trying out a new macro lens,scary stuff.

MOTHS AND A FLAME

No birds or butterflies to report this week but the moth trap has been a bit busier,with some of my favourites coming to the light.

BUFF ERMINE

BUFF ARCHES

ANGLE SHADES

SNOUT

PURPLE BAR

SWALLOWTAIL

GREY DAGGER

REDDISH LIGHT ARCHES

LESSER BROAD BORDERED YELLOW UNDERWING.

BEAUTIFUL GOLDEN Y

SMALL MAGPIE

DOT MOTH

COMMON RUSTIC

LARGE YELLOW UNDERWING

FANFOOT

LEOPARD MOTH,I thought it was dead but,

it revived but was in a tatty condition.

AND FINALLY

THE OLYMPIC FLAME AT SAMPHIRE HOE

DREW A LARGE INVITED AUDIENCE ON WEDNESDAY AFTERNOON.

WHERE ARE YOU NAPOLEON?

Wednesday mornining gave a brief window to visit Lydden again and the first chalk hill blues,just two,were freshly emerged.

CHALK HILL BLUE

MEADOW BROWN

RINGLET

HEDGE BROWN or GATEKEEPER

MARBLED WHITE

COMMA

Two more chalk hill blues were seen on the cliffs in t`afternoon.

CHB LANGDON CLIFFS.

Thursday went in search of the Purple Emperor in Dene Park had a brief sighting of two butterflies in the top of the master oak at 9am,but the similarity to white admiral at distance meant I could not be certain and as there were no further signs of them on high and a dozen or more white admirals in the wood lower down....we`ll never know.
Eventually found a silver washed fritillary

SILVER WASHED FRITILLARY
A nice southern hawker came along and a brown hawker came and had a good look at me,dont think it had a camera though.

SOUTHERN HAWKER
After a frustrating morning went off to Lullingstone hoping for a better result with the Dark Green Fritillaries,it was soon evident that there were quite a few flying around so it was just a matter of patience to get a few shots off.

DARK GREEN  FRITILLARY

D G FRIT female

The green on the underwing gives the name, although it doesn`t look very dark to me.

this one is a little darker

They like the knapweed and scabious flowers.

With all the doom and gloom about the weather killing off our butterflies,some are doing better than others and certainly at Lydden they seem to be holding up quite well,so time will tell I guess. We have not had the deluges suffered by many areas which is a great advantage.
Last but not least the Costa Romantica called in at Dover on tuesday and left without a scratch .

COSTA ROMANTICA.