Tuesday 7 June 2016

June 7th Mousehold Heath & Strumpshaw Fen

Cinnabar Moth
I went on another butterfly survey at Mousehold Heath this morning. The conditions are perfect. The sun is out, its hot, there isn't a cloud in the sky and there was hardly a breath of wind. However, for some unknown reason, we could only find five butterflies; 1 speckled wood, 1 green hairstreak, 1 large white and 2 holly blues. We actually found more moths than butterflies, as well as a frog. Where have all the butterflies gone? I expect last week's cold weather has something to do with it and perhaps they are being slow to recover from it. Either way, it has been a disappointing survey. Let's hope next week is more successful.


Brown Silver-lines
Common Frog
Broom
Vapourer Moth Caterpillar (back at home)
Orange-tip
This afternoon, Mum and I went for a walk around the meadow trail at Strumpshaw Fen to try again in my search for Norfolk hawkers and common blue butterflies and to get a photo of one as part of my Strumpshaw 40 challenge. Unfortunately, I couldn't find a single one of either species despite searching hard for them. However, we did see a swallowtail flying over the meadow as well as four-spotted chasers, hairy dragonflies and broad-bodied chasers. I hope I can do much better tomorrow and get my 30th target species for my challenge list.





Brimstone
Broad-bodied Chaser
Four-spotted Chaser
Bog bean
Dog Rose
Willow Warbler

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