July 6th 2010

Although we did not see any Purple Emperor butterflies this morning Bob and I had a good day in Ryton Woods despite it becoming cloudy. The count included 14 Silver-washed Fritillary, 12 White Admiral, 10 Purple Hairstreak along with hundreds of Ringlets plus Meadow Brown, Speckled Wood, Large White, Gatekeeper, Marbled White, Large and Small Skipper and a lone Wood White. This brings my butterfly count to 31 species for the county out of 34 recorded so far this year + one intro.
There were also plenty of dragon and damselflies plus at least four family parties of Nuthatch seen or heard.

White Admiral

Richard