Wednesday 25th. July 2012

Firstly , nearly missed a correction to a spider ID on last Saturday's post . Many thanks to Greg for identifying the Conb-footed Spider , Theridiidae , and not the Crab Spider that I thought it was , Cheers Greg . A catch up on yesterday when I managed to get out for a short while up on the Common , before visitors arrived . Purple Hairstreaks are still in short supply , but I did find my first female of the species , identified by

the small area of purple on the top forewing , if the light is in the right direction of course . Also

around was a Gatekeeper with a very flashy underwing . Unfortunately , it never opened it's wings to

see the top colours . A very fresh Small Copper , no doubt encouraged to emerge into all this sunshine was also found . The Whites are starting to show up more recently , like this fresh Green-

veined White . Over on the other side , the first of the Broad-leaved Helliborines have come into

flower . Today , with the other surveyor abroad , I headed off for the down to do the Reptile survey .
Arriving at 9 o'clock , the temperature was already 20C , and hopes of finding anything I thought were close to nil , but there is always the butterflies too , so off I set . Both sites surprisingly did produce both Adders and Slow Worms . 19 Slow Worms were recorded , much fewer than last visit ,

but Adders , at 11 , were up on that visit . All but one of the Adders were female , like this one , and

several of the adult females were found with sub.adult specimens , being two years plus in age . The

only male found was a bit fiesty , hissing his displeasure at my interest in him . The hoped for Clouded Yellow failed to materialise , so no new species were recorded on either site , but the Chalkhill Blues on both sites , and neither was the one managed specifically for the species , have exploded . Very hard to be positive with all the movement , at times the whole site seemed to be a sea of dancing blue , but I estimated 200+ and 350+ on the two sites , and that was conservative .

Interestingly , I saw 11 mating pairs on one site and none on the other , here the male is on the left . On both sites , males and females were constantly emerging and drying their wings in the sunshine .

As usual , with several of the Blues , the largest congregations are found , around animal droppings .
And finally the sun has brought out the Harebells / Campanulla rotundifolia , a member of the

Bellflower family .