Sussex 'Spring' Butterflies.

 A few days before I was heading to Scotland for a long photographic trip with Lisa, I had my Naturetrek tour, The Spring Butterflies of Sussex.

Unfortunately, the weather was not at all kind to us. It's always a problem when the hotel has to be booked and the van hire is sorted, but the weather has other ideas.

However, we always try our best and in the difficult conditions many rare butterflies were still seen and everyone seemed happy with the results.

The day before the trip I did a quick recce at one of the local river sites to see how the insects there were doing. It gave me some encouragement that we would at least see some lovely insects there.

Mayfly.

Beautiful Demoiselle.

Thick-thighed Flower-beetle.

The following day, I was able to show the group several Mayflies and some of the aptly named Beautiful Demoiselle.

When I am leading a group, although I carry my camera, I rarely use it. This is of course, because my job is to find things for the group to admire and photograph. Therefore, I have only a few images taken during the tour. These are from the 2nd day in the field where we scored with our two main targets. The rare Duke of Burgundy and the rarer Wood White.

Duke of Burgundy.

Wood White.

It is always a wonderful experience showing people new species, and our group was mixed with experienced butterfly watchers as well as a couple of people that were new to butterflies. Even the experienced watchers had the Duke of Burgundy and Pearl-bordered Fritillaries as new species, so it was a very rewarding tour.

The final day was unfortunately, a complete wash-out. This was after opening the moth trap in my garden, where a few moths had bravely ventured out the previous night.