Mating Wall Brown.

This year I have so far only seen 2 female Wall Brown, and both of them were at the time in a romantic attachment. Strangely both pairs were also within 100 metres of each other and in an area where I don't normally see huge numbers of Wall Brown.

Mating Wall Brown. (male on left).

Female on left.

This was on just a short walk on my local patch. The main other interest that day was the huge numbers of Green Hairstreak, with around 24 seen. The highest I have known along the valley. I also found 2 larval webs of the Lackey moth.

Lackey moth larval web.

The following day I took Pete out to Abbotts Wood to listen to the Nightingales. Whilst we were there we also saw a few Pearl-bordered Fritillaries and some Orange-tip eggs on the Garlic Mustard.

It was while I was looking for the eggs that I spotted a Long-horned Moth sitting on the plant, and then several more of these moths on other plants. After getting home and looking closely at the photo I thought it looked like the tiny micro moth Cauchas rufimitrella, but the Sussex Moth group page says the moth is quite scarce and not found in that area. I sent the picture off to the Sussex Moth Recorder who confirmed it was indeed the Cauchas rufimitrella and that the moth was last recorded in Abbotts Wood before 1907!!

Cauchas rufimitrella.

I also had a close encounter with the very common Speckled Yellow, a moth that can be very difficult to get close to.

Speckled Yellow.

On Friday I took Clare along the valley searching out butterflies she had not seen yet this year. In the end we had a great session with lots of butterflies performing well that included Holly Blue, Adonis Blue, Small Copper, Green Hairstreak and Grizzled and Dingy Skipper. We also found a very attractive Oak Eggar larva that was around half grown.

Female Holly Blue.

Small Copper.

Oak Eggar larva.

Female Adonis Blue preparing to roost.

Roosting Female Adonis Blue.