Bentley Woods 6th July

Highlights were 1 Purple Emperor, 1 White Admiral and lots of Silver-washed Fritillary.

A cloudy, windy and cool morning saw 8 of us meet at a fairly secluded car park in a glade in this wonderful woodland. We were on the look out for butterflies especially the Purple Emperor. Some have been seen in recent days, but looking at the weather, we were going to have to be lucky.

The car park is often a good place to look out for Purple Emperor. We waited for a short while, but all we saw was a few Willow Warblers feeding in the scrub.

We slowly walked along the wide tracks of the woodland. There were lots of flowers out – Agrimony, Enchanters Nightshade, a few Common Spotted Orchid, Imperforate St. John’s Wort, Hedge Woundwort, Meadowsweet and Self heal were all seen in the first few metres of pathway and Perforate St. John’s Wort a little further down. Then David saw a movement – a dark brown butterfly. It was a Ringlet. A little further down the path and we saw 5 more – and it was still cool and cloudy. Further down the path was Wood Spurge, Common Centaury and Common Valerian and there was a Blackcap, Wren and Woodpigeons singing. We got to an area where the ride had a wide grassy area to one side and the sun briefly appeared. Several Ringlets got up and a large orange butterfly – a Silver-washed Fritillary. Over the next few minutes of sunshine we got good views of 2 or 3 of them and some Large Skippers on Betony flowers.

We carried on walking, turning right at a crossroads and continuing. More flowers included Wild Basil and Yellow Vetchling. Whenever the sun popped out we saw lots of Ringlet and a few Silver-washed Fritillary. At one point we saw another Large Skipper and another Skipper. The sun went in and I managed to catch it in my hand so that we could look at the undersides of the antennae – they were black so it was an Essex Skipper. We saw some young toads here too.

We got to a couple of Elms where White-letter Hairstreaks are often seen, but it was far too windy today. After a few minutes we turned back. More Ringlets, Silver-washed Fritillary and Skippers were seen. Another skipper was caught and this one was a Small Skipper – it was nice to see the difference between Small and Essex in the hand.

We got back to the car park and enjoyed a cup of coffee. A Comma flew up into the oak tree there and then the sun came out. After about half an hour a Purple Emperor drifted across. It reappeared after a few minutes and gave us pretty good views as it sat on the leaves of a high tree. Once it had gone we saw a White Admiral briefly for comparison. At least we had seen what we came for!!
Simon Curson