Looking Back.

 With very little happening locally, and that is all we can do at the moment, I have re-worked a few images from the distant past.

These 4 are all from a couple of trips away with Pen, with 2 damselfly shots from when we stayed at Lyndhurst in the New Forest. We had found that the Balmer Lawn Hotel looked after us quite well on a couple of occasions and as I was keen to have a further search for the Southern Damselfly we arranged for a couple of nights away during the flight season. This species is very rare and only found in a few locations, and my only search before had resulted in failure.

Leaving Pen to relax in the grounds I headed off to a site that I heard can be very good for the target species, and it wasn't to disappoint with good numbers seen. A mating pair gave me the best opportunities for photos, and a little bonus was another mating pair, this time a pair of Small Red Damselflies.

Southern Damselflies.

Small Red Damselflies.

The following year, for my birthday, Pen took me to the Isle of Wight to hunt out the Glanville Fritillary. This species I had only seen before at a site where they had been introduced, so I was keen to see them in their natural environment.

The problem was it was right at the start of their flight season, and there was a good chance we wouldn't see any. On the day we went there hadn't been any reports of them flying and I really thought we would be missing out. There were however, lots of larvae about, another bad sign as far as seeing the adults were concerned. 

The larvae were mostly fully grown and a few shots were taken. I now wish I had looked a little harder for any pupa as they are particularly attractive as pupa goes!! 

Glanville Fritillary larva.

On the 2nd morning I did get lucky by seeing a couple of adult butterflies, the only ones I did see. 

It certainly was a relief to find them on this special trip!!

Glanville Fritillary.