Hexton Chalk Pits and Pegsdon hills

On sunday had a nice visit to Hexton Chalk Pits the first thing that caught my eye was the number of Brimstones out on the wing more than I seen together so far this year.

Feeding Brimstone

Then my eye was caught to a lone Painted Lady feeding in the knapweed seen a few this year mainly on the coast which was quite active but always great to see.

Painted Lady

But the main reason was to see the Chalk-hill Blues despite been late in the season still a good few Hundred easily on the wings quite busy usually chasing off each other but still a few managed to pose briefly for me!! Other butterflies on the wing were Common Blue, Gatekeeper, Meadow Brown and the white Species though only a single green-veined White.

Female Chalk-hill Blue

Feed male Chalk-hill Blue

Male fully spread

Then while watching this came across a few Grasshopper and crickets my personally favourite was the Roesel's Bush Cricket which I don't see that often and also the Meadow Grasshopper and the Common Field Grasshopper were around

Roesel's Bush Cricket

Meadow Grasshopper

Then ended the afternoon with a walk around Pegsdon Hills with a nice walk with agood number of Holly Blue on the Ickleworth way and few Chalk-hill Blues on the top of the hill with the hightlight a nice Spotted Flycatcher showed itself briefly at the top of the valley.