I was rather late to the party this year for the Large Tortoiseshell. I had searched several times in the local wood where I have seen them before, but with no luck at all, although I had heard that 2 people had struck lucky there this year.
As the weather had been so warm in the early spring, I had possibly been looking at the wrong time, as the mornings were not warm enough for them to be active that early in the season, and I had probably returned home by the time they had started flying.
I then heard from James, that there was a woodland in Kent where several had been sighted. To be honest, I wasn't really that keen to go all the way over to Kent to see a species that I had seen 4 times before, and all of the 4 I had found myself. It sort of felt that my record of finding all my sightings would have gone if I went to see someone else's findings. However, when I mentioned the Large Tortoiseshell to David, he was keen to go, so I felt I may as well join him. We knew that by now they would be very tatty, but any Large Tortoiseshell is a good sighting!!
We went over in David's car, and it was just as we were arriving at the wood that I realised I had not put any walking shoes or boots in the car. All I had on were soft slip on things that were far from ideal for walking through a possibly muddy woodland. Fortunately, due to the lack of rain, it wasn't such a problem after all!!
After much searching, we worked out where the best spot would be to see the butterflies. We did however, need to wait until the day warmed up a bit more. In the meantime we were entertained by many Orange Underwing and Light Orange Underwing that kept landing on the track in front of us. These are both species I know very well, as each year I try to get a decent image of them, and normally fail. However, it had only been the previous week, that I managed to get my best ever shot of the Light Orange Underwing, perched unusually off the ground, while I was on a Large Tortoiseshell search in the local wood.
Light Orange Underwing.
After searching other parts of the woodland, and after lunch, we returned to the area that looked promising, and straight away I spotted a Large Tortoiseshell flying past us. I saw roughly where it had landed, and after re-finding it we had several minutes with this rare butterfly. Hardly a beauty anymore, but when fresh, this would have been a wonderful sight.
Large Tortoiseshell on a tree trunk.
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