Bentley Wood

Had a special trip on sunday with my local group of Butterfly Conservation to bentley wood on the Hampshire Wiltshire border to learn about the South East Woodland project and a chance to see some unusal Butterflies and moths. As it was quite a grey day and rain was due later we first went to look for the butterflies in the eastern section where at first we got 1 Large Skipper and 1 White Admiral very early indeed and quite a few birds including Tree Pipits, Woodcock and a lot of Willow warblers and Chiff-chaffs around which both breed on site. Further into the eastern section we had Small Pearl-bordered Fritillary butterflies as due to the early spring this year Pearl-bordered Fritillaries and Marsh Fritillaries butterflies had passed season and we also had sighting of the Argent & Sable Moth and Drab Looper Moth both rare species that the woodland project is aiming to look after. After the rain came down at the end of the eastern section we had lunch then we were taken round the top end were we shown how there were coppicing for certain butterflies and moth as alot of the Fritillaries are quite fussy with there habbit requiments which is why sadly alot are only found in certain areas which is why this project is trying to encourage local woodlands to help with the habbit requiments with grants which help the landowners and the butterflies by help the population have bigger gene pools.

White Admiral

Small Pearl-bordered Fritillary

Argent & Sable Moth