Knepp Wilding / Thursley Common (16/07/22)

The least hottest of the days of the weekend saw me heading down to Dad's and then onto Knepp Wilding followed by a quick drop into Thursley Common.

The Large Tortoiseshell at Knepp failed to appear but good low level views of Purple Hairstreak (Dad, you should have been there!) and a female Purple Emperor giving us the run-around.  It was nice to see the introduced White Storks are doing well.

Very little at Thursley except 2 Woodlark, Dartford Warbler and first Brown Hawker of the year.  The boardwalk still doesn't exist after the fire except a very small section - the good area for the Odonata having been fenced off.

New Forest / Martin Down (09/07/22)

 A very hot day albeit a bit blustery saw me visit a number of sites in the New Forest and finished off at Martin Down.  It was a very successful day.  I visited:

• Boundway
• Burley Mill Lawn
• Stoney Cross
• Martin Down

Although most of the orchids at Boundway were nearly over I did manage to see Heath Fragrant Orchid, Heath Spotted Orchid and a hybrid between them both.  A nice Silver-washed Fritillary was also seen.

Onto Burley Mill Lawn where I wandered around with Andy Appleton (Twitter) and we had some good views of Bog Orchid (which I've never seen here before - although not really looked that hard), a few Southern (Mercury) Damselflies, Small Red Damselfly, lots of Keeled Skimmers and Oblong-leaved Sundew.

At Stoney Cross there were a couple more Bog Orchids.

At Martin Down there was 3 Frog Orchids and my first Chalk-hill Blue of the year.

Winchester / Noar Hill (03/07/22)

Hooray - I was just about to give up when from nowhere the butterfly I had tried 3 different times for appeared on a bramble in front of me (well about 20 feet away).  I was so excited to get my missing hairstreak species for Britain I found it difficult to hold the camera still.  At this site were a fair number of Comma's

No luck with Frog Orchid though, either at St Catherines Hill or Noar Hill. However, Noar Hill had a remarkable number of Musk Orchids.  They were everywhere!!!

25th June (Gloucestershire)

I had discovered that a location for Large Blue's was available to me closer than those in Somerset so a day trip to Gloucestershire was called for.  The drive wasn't too bad until some muppet decided to nudge me in the back at a roundabout while I was waiting for a motorbike to go around the roundabout.  I turned off into a nearby industrial estate but they decided not to follow - luckily no damage appears to have been done.

At Daneway Banks the Large Blues eventually showed superbly well.  A bonus here was a Thistle Ermine (?) moth and another Bee Orchid.  Marbled White's were everywhere.

The day became very blustery so I didn't see much at the other sites - I didn't have a clue where to see the Red Helleborine even if they still existed.

The other interesting species were Bird's Nest Orchid, Viper's Bugloss and what I thought was an orchid turned out to be a BlueBell in seed in the same location as Ramsom's leaves!

19th June (Stockbridge Down, Yew Hill, Greywell)

 Another vain attempt to see White-letter Hairstreak (I actually saw a couple of Green Hairstreaks).  Some recompense came with an out-of-place Goldenring Dragonfly, Marsh Helleborine and more Southern Marsh Orchids.

11 June 2022 (Various Surrey sites)

At last Black Hairstreak showing wonderfully at Epsom Common. No White-letter Hairstreak at Clandon.  Some orchids and Dark Green Fritillary at Pewley Down.