The hot weather continued and drew me out butterfly hunting again. I cycled around Oaken Wood, Barming during my lunch hour and was pleased to find my first Painted Lady of the year (well for Kent anyway) feeding on buddleia alongside a Red Admiral and 3x Peacocks. Good numbers of Gatekeepers were on the wing and a Holly Blue was seen, but no White Admirals today. Dragonflies were also in good numbers, predominantly Brown Hawkers.I stopped off to check at the nest near Palmer's Rough to see if I couldn't spot a parent going into feed the chicks - no cativity after 10 minutes so I checked the nest. Empty! All the chicks had gone, obviously too early to fledge but most probably predated. Guess I'll never know what they were.
Later Adrian described a Little Grebe chick he'd found bedraggled on the stream near Bradbourne House, East Malling. Eventually he decided to move it back up to the main lake as it was a good distance, and waterfall, away from there. Hopefully it'll fair better than the nestlings.
4 comments:
Adam ,
Nice one with the Painted Lady , they have been in short supply this year . Not surprising with all the W. and N. winds we've been getting . Shame they can't survive our winters , and we have to rely on spring migration each year . As you say , good numbers of Brown Hawker about , sad thing is that we only have Migrant Hawker to come , and thats another dragonfly year , unless S. or SE. winds blow over any migrants .
Welldone with the Painted Lady, Adam - haven't seen 1 this year yet.
Welldone with the Painted Lady, Adam - haven't seen 1 this year yet.
Well done with the Painted Lady Adam...not seen one this year...yet
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