With getting out for long walks virtually every day over the past few weeks it's great to be seeing more as the days warm up.
Peacock butterflies do seem to have done well locally surviving the Winter, and are by far the butterflies that I am seeing most of. I have now seen double figures of this species, whereas, apart from these I have only seen one Small Tortoiseshell and a couple Brimstone.
I stumbled across a male Brimstone in cool conditions, and although it wasn't in the best of conditions I was quite pleased with the photo I managed before it flew. The other side of the butterfly was much more damaged, so I got a little lucky!
A slightly faded male Brimstone.
Wall Brown larva have been hard to find over this Winter, and I do wonder how many pupa perished during a spell of bad weather during the time that the 3rd brood would have been emerging last Autumn. Of course, if they die at this stage before they can fly, mate and lay eggs it is likely to mean less over-wintering larvae. This also happened 2-3 years ago, but they very quickly recovered. Before photographing the Brimstone I did see 4 well developed larva, following my best count of 11 last week. Of these 4 one was showing particularly well and I decided to grab a photo of it. This also shows the feeding damage to the grass where it had been feeding, possibly overnight.
Wall Brown larva.
Yesterday I had a casual search in the very slim possibility of finding a Small Eggar egg laying, or at least a cluster of eggs. In the end I did find a cluster of eggs, although these were eggs of the Vapourer Moth. Still very nice to find as it's been several years since I had last seen these.
Vapourer eggs on Blackthorn.
2 Peacock were seen yesterday, as well as a probable Small Tortoiseshell that flew fast away from me before I could do a definite id.
Peacock.
Following this I had another attempt at photographing the local Kestrel. This time he did eventually get a bit closer to me as it hunted.
Male Kestrel.
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