Scottish Highlight #3 Chequered Skipper

With missing this butterflies on my trip last year made a big effort to find some Chequered Skippers this year the first place i found them was in Glasdrum Wood just north of Oban despite the weather been cloudy and someone damp on the day so got a few images of them resting up. On another trip at Ariundle Woodland on the Ardnamurchan Peninsula had a lovely evening watching a few flying around in the evening sunshine so I was well rewarded.

Chequered  Skipper resting in Glasdrum Wood

Chequered  Skipper  feeding in Ariundle Woodland

Scottish highlights #2 Sunset on the west coast

In June went up to the West coast of Scotland one of the highlights was the sunset around Connel on Loch Etive near oban on a couple of evenings up on the coast sadly only got a good sunset for two evening but worth the wait.

Boats on Loch Etive

Was also lucky enough on both evening to get quite close to a pair of Red-breasted Mergansers which seemed to favour the area though usual as the light was vanishing

Pair of Red-breasted Mergansers

Southern Hawker

Even though this year seen plenty of the larger dragonflies was't till this week till i had a nice posing Southern Hawker at one my local reserves sitting in the hedge before back to its usually patrolling.

Fine detail of the Southern Hawker wings

Day out on the Lincolnshire Coast

On Saturday decided to head for Lincolnshire as the tides were for a good high tide first stop was Gibraltar Point a nice sunny but windy morning brought had quite a few butterflies with my first Wall of the year along with good number of Red Admirals and Common Blues. On the scrape was lucky enough to see a Spoonbill pretty close up my best view of this species feeding in with the Little Egrets, Redshanks, Godwits and the odd Greenshank and flying through were a good number of Swallows and Sand Martins guess autumn on the way.

Then headed to Frampton Marsh doing a bit of the Hedgerow area first had a nice Munjac Deer feeding by one of the small pools and a quick view of a Grass Snake but was amazed at how many Speckled Woods there were down this short hedgerow. Then walked the long way to the scrape from the visitor centre which gave me the advantage of finding a young Yellow Wagtail. Then had a nice session in the 360 Hide with 2 more Spoonbills, Wood Sandpiper, Little Stint, Spotted Redshank and a good number of Avocets the highlight from the hide before heading to the wet marshland where I had a lovely Glossy Ibis along with a showy Sedge Warbler.

Spoonbill Feeding

Spoonbill Preening

Spoonbill next to a Little egret

Munjac Deer

Feeding glossy Ibis

Sedge warbler

Sunny day in the lakes

Woke to the a nice sunny morning so headed to Honister Pass to climb up Great Gable but first took a little detour to Buttermere as early morning it always takes your breath away.

Views from the B289

Buttermere reflections

Next headed to Honister Pass to climb up Great Gable and with a chance of Mountain Ringlet despite the heat did get 2 views of Mountain Ringlets across the grass but the walk up made it a worthwhile walk but hard going with the temperature reaching 25c but the views from near the top were superb though sadly the top itself was cloudy right at the top.

Honister Pass

View from the first Ridge

Buttermere and Crummock water

Ennerdale Water and buttermere

View from near the top

Arnside Knott

After visiting Leighton Moss next stop was a visit to Arnside Knott a first visit to this site has i usually come up to this area in the spring or the autumn so it was a good chance to catch up a few of the Butterflies which favoured this area.

Walked up the main hill where i came across a female Dark Green Fritillary which seemed to be egg laying though i was hoping for a High Brown Fritillary but no so luck as most of the Fritillaries were too active feeding (with the other butterflies of Gatekeepers, Skippers, Common Blue and Meadow Browns) as it was quite a hot day a lot of them were feeding on the betony which looked great in the sunshine.

Dark Green Fritillary

Field of Betony

Futher round on the woodland edge quite a few Scotch Argus were around with 1 Northern Brown Argus and a few Grayling catching the sun on the limestone path and just at then end of my walk a lovely family of nuthatches were feeding in the tree a great sight to be seen.

Grayling

Northern Brown Argus