You can always rely on nature to provide the odd surprise, usually pleasant. I went to Denbies Hillside this morning, a lovely area of south facing, downland meadow looked after by the National Trust, with the idea of photographing a butterfly or two. Whilst walking gently across one of the lower slopes (not always easy by the way, your feet never seem to be in the right place!), I heard a light buzzing call (poor description really but there you are) and noticed a small yellow shape on a hedge top some way below me, yellowhammer! These are sadly very scarce now and I hadn't seen one in the county for maybe three years. They are another bird with links to farming that have declined dramatically over recent years and whilst i can name a couple of sites in surrey for them, I didn't know they were here.
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| Yellowhammer |
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| Yellowhammer with a glimpse of the rusty rump |
This the sort of place where you bump into and just talk to people of like mind. I had one chat this morning with an older gentleman. We just spent five minutes each talking about what we had seen and the sort of wildlife which he in particular had previously seen. I asked him at one point whether he was a flower man, or into butterflies or birds. His answer was that he just liked nature (by implication in all its myriad forms) which was a nice response. We sometimes think, we oldies, that young people don't share that same fascination but many do and many of them have brilliant knowledge to go with the enthusiasm.
Coming back to butterflies, the main two species were marbled white (one of my favourites actually) and meadow brown, which seem to come in many different shades. Three other species were also present with small numbers of small heath, one ringlet with white spots rather than rings and one blue, which with a bit of help, I identified as a common blue. This site is known, among other things, for the amazing adonis blue but I would expect them on the wing next month sometime. I will be back.
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| Marbled White |
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| Ringlet |
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| Small Heath |
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| Common Blue |
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