Bentley Wood 10 July

Highlights were 2 White Admiral, lots of Silver-washed Fritillary and some Bog Bush-crickets.

5 of us met at a fairly secluded car park in a glade in this wonderful woodland. The weather had been cool and wet for the past few days, but today was a little warmer, not so windy and there were a few sunny spells earlier on in the walk. 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.

From the car park we heard Chiffchaff, Song Thrush and Woodpigeons singing and saw at least 4 Silver-washed Fritillary as the sun came out. Howard showed us a Purple Hairstreak that he had rescued from a friends garden. It had damaged wings and couldn’t fly properly, but it was still great to see one so close up.

We slowly walked along the wide tracks of the woodland. The sun was shining most of the time at first and we saw many Silver-washed Fritillary and Ringlet and a few Large Skipper. We stopped at one small glade with lots of Silver-washed Fritillary and Howard eventually found 2 White Admiral and we got great views of them. There was also a Great-spotted Woodpecker, a few Nuthatches, Goldcrest and Coal Tit here. There were lots of flowers out – Agrimony, Enchanters Nightshade, a few Common Spotted Orchid, Hedge Woundwort, Meadowsweet and Perforate St. John’s-wort were all seen on this first track. Further down the path was Common Centaury, Tufted Vetch, Marsh Thistle, Hemp Agrimony and Common Valerian. A Broad-bodied Chaser dragonfly was seen on one side of the track and a Red Admiral on the other side. Further along we found a small colony of Bog Bush-cricket on the damp edge to the track. There was also a little Creeping Jenny here too.

The rest of the walk didn’t give us much else new as the sun went in and it turned fairly cool. The only other butterfly we saw was a Marbled White and by the end of the walk only a few Ringlet could be seen fluttering along. We did find some Zig Zag Clover and we were joined by two dogs until we were able to return them to their owner. Sadly we didn’t see any Purple Emperor, but there were plenty of butterflies on the first part of the walk.
Simon Curson