High Brown Fritillaries (and some pubs) in Devon

Once again, apologies for the lack of recent updates: just not been out and about very much lately! However, Suzanne and I returned to London on Sunday night after an excellent weekend away in one of the few National Parks that I’d never visited previously: Exmoor, and the North Devon coast.

We set out early on Saturday morning, heading along the predictably tedious M4 in rather murky conditions, to arrive in a drizzly Lynton by about 9am. (Hmm… not really selling this yet, am I?) Undeterred by this typical English summer weather, we headed out for a walk through the nearby Valley of Rocks, with wildlife starting to feature in the form of two screechy young Peregrines, Stonechats and lots of feral goats! Fulmars wheeled around the cliffs below us and a few Gannets sailed past further out… definitely not in London now!

The major target of the trip for me was to catch up with High Brown Fritillary, an increasingly rare butterfly in the UK, which only has a patchy and localised distribution. As well as Devon, they only remain in pockets of South Wales and southern Cumbria. One of the best sites is the Heddon Valley, west of Lynton, in a large area of National Trust land. Access is by minor roads, north from the A39 near Parracombe, or east from Combe Martin. Parking, unusually for an NT site, is abundant and cheap, and even more happily, adjacent to a decent pub: the rather impressive Hunters Inn. When we arrived, there was still rain in the air, and besides, we were getting peckish… only one thing for it!

One very large jacket potato, and one local cheese Ploughmans later, we (st)rolled down the valley to Heddon Mouth, through oak woodland beside the river… quite idyllic (though still lacking in sunshine). In brief bursts of sunshine, a few fritillaries appeared over more open areas of bracken, but too far away for an ID – Dark Green and High Brown are very similar in pattern, and pretty much identical in structure. Down at the mouth of the river, seabirds were to-ing and fro-ing from breeding colonies on the cliffs: Guillemots and Razorbills in particular. A couple more young Peregrines chased overhead, giving superb views.

Feeling pretty tired after the early start, we checked into our luxury accommodation on Exmoor:

… before heading out to pub number 2: the Royal Oak, in Withypool. Pork Belly with a Cider Cream sauce… mmmm!

As we’d hoped, the next morning dawned–crystal clear, with deep blue (almost!) cloudless skies. We returned to Heddon Valley, and I’ll let the pictures tell the story for a while…

A rarity.

Not too terrible a place to spend an hour or two…

The target – will have to return for better photos!

Dark Green Fritillaries

… and finally some coastal scenery.

Oh, and there was a third excellent pub on the way home: The Rock, in Georgeham. I was most disappointed to see Doom Bar on draught, and Roast Beef on the menu.

Tick ‘n’ Roll

If ever a photo utterly failed to do justice to a bird, this is it.

But photography aside: Roller – what a bird! I’ve wanted to see one of these in the UK for ages, and the lure of one in Suffolk on a sunny summer evening was way too strong to resist. Messrs Hawkins and Monkey felt the same way, and we were on our way by just after 5.30, for once with the A12 traffic on our side. Little more than an hour later, we arrived, and the Roller showed non-stop for a couple of hours, never particularly close, but giving excellent scope views… perched and preening for long periods, then spectacular in feeding mode as it sallied high and low after insect prey. Simply awesome – could’ve happily watched it all day, no exaggeration.

As the light started to fade, we too sallied high and low for food (of the Woodbridge fish-and-chip variety) and, like the Roller, met with considerable success. Near the end of our al-fresco dining, Paul got buzzed by a rather spectacular stag beetle, which landed on the house opposite. I happened to have a macro lens with me, and I think it’s fair to say that the following result is slightly better than the previous shot…

PS – the beetle was a lifer as well!

Dainty Damselflies, Isle of Sheppey

Paul W and I made a successful trip down to Kent yesterday lunchtime for another new species of Odonata: Dainty Damselflies, which were only rediscovered in the UK last summer after going extinct here in 1953. They were located in three sites, and since one of these has public access, details have been released.

The site involves a few small pools underneath the new Isle of Sheppey high-rise bridge (the A249), surrounded by rough grassland. Turn off just before the start of the new bridge, go over the old bridge, and aim to park in a gateway on the LHS after about 150m – there’s room for about four or five cars with care. Once you drop down a short but steep bank, you’ll see the pools about 50m ahead of you. The Dainties seem to be favouring the area around the second pool from the left. This map might help…

On arrival, we heard that up to four males had been seen earlier in the morning, but had disappeared with the arrival of thicker cloud and a few spots of rain. Fortunately, this soon cleared, and we could start searching through the relatively small numbers of Blue-tailed and Common Blue Damselflies. After about 30 minutes, Paul located a smart female Dainty in grass NE of the pool, which showed well for photos – click to enlarge:

The first image is the best one, and shows a number of distinctive features:

• rather long, pale pterostigma (longer than they are wide)
• thin black spur on the side of the thorax forming an inverted exclamation mark
• relatively thin antehumeral stripes, compared to Common Blue
• extensive black on segments 3-7 tending to a point at the top: ‘rocket-shaped’
• very pale off-white legs – not sure if this is significant or not?
• small size compared to Common Blue also noted

A short while later, a male was also located. My shots of this aren’t quite as good, but (hopefully!) still leave no doubt, illustrating:

• almost entirely black segments 6 & 7
• pattern on S2 is usually like a wine-glass – a U shape connected to a black band below (similar to Variable Damsel). On this individual, there was no connecting ‘stem’… though this feature is apparently very unreliable
• mushroom shaped pattern of black on S3
• black H pattern on S9, like that on an Azure (but where a Common Blue should be plain blue)

Finally, by way of variety, here’s an impressive cricket of some kind… waiting on an ID for this one!