Hello again, it’s time for the blog once more and I’ll start with a bit of butterfly news. Last Sunday I spotted a pretty good sighting in the book. It was of ‘at least two’ purple hairstreak butterflies in the oaks on Green Lane. So off I went to have a look for these beautiful butterflies. They are not the easiest of butterflies to find as they spend a lot of their time in the canopy of the oak trees. It was also very sunny and not easy to look up.
After a while I spotted a butterfly shape that was about the right size (small) quite high up and so I took a few photos of the leaves and kept my fingers crossed that I’d find a butterfly on the photos. I retreated from the sun into the Family Hide and imagine my delight when I saw a purple hairstreak on one of the photos. Ok, it’s not an amazing butterfly photo but it clearly shows a purple hairstreak!
The people who found them and wrote this sighting in the book were Gary Haywood and Mark Linnington. Our thanks goes to them for reporting this sighting and also one at Adwick as well. Heather later tweeted that these are the first purple hairstreak sightings on both Old Moor and Adwick. She also said that she believes that these sightings are also firsts for this recording area. If you are wanting to see them then a pair of bins will come in handy so that you can get a good look at the tops of the oaks. Let us know if you do see one.
For a bit more info about this butterfly then read this web-page from Butterfly Conservation.
Then there was a bit more butterfly news… Every now and then we have a sighting of a brown argus butterfly at Old Moor, but not that often and they can be mistaken for a worn female common blue. Here’s the link to the web-page from Butterfly Conservation about them. So I was taking a few butterfly photos on the marjoram in the little garden near the VC when I saw what I thought at first was a common blue butterfly. There are a few on the wing at the moment and this one looked quite fresh but when I was looking at it, the wings never opened. I had a closer look at the patterns on the underwing on the computer and worked out that it could well be a brown argus rather than a common blue.
I used this very helpful ‘similar species’ web-page from UK Butterflies – scroll down a bit and you’ll find the comparison between the brown argus and the common blue. I checked it out with Heather and @BC_Yorkshire on Twitter and yes, it was a brown argus.
Heather also told me that she had a record of one a couple of years ago at Old Moor but that Adwick is the best place to go to try to find them.
So next to the sightings from the book at Old Moor today. Thanks again go to all of you who write down what you see. It’s very helpful! If you are reading this and have no idea what ‘the book’ is, then it is on the left as you come into the Visitor Centre. Feel free to write down what you have seen on your visit and where it was. There is usually a pen there but if there isn’t, just ask for one at the desk.
On the Wader Scrape today were shelduck and common terns.
It’s the time of year when kingfishers begin to show well around Old Moor. Today there was a sighting from the Field Pool East but recently there have also been sightings from the Bittern Hide, Wath Ings and the Reedbed Screen. On the Mere, and/or from the Family Hide there were sightings of LBB gulls, greylag geese, common sandpiper (1), green sandpiper (1) and black tailed godwit (1).
A black tailed godwit was also seen from the Bittern Hide along with little egret, grey heron, great crested grebes, lapwing, Canada Geese, black headed gulls, reed warbler and coots. A great spotted woodpecker visited the Bird Garden today along with all the usual, current suspects. A southern hawker dragonfly was seen on one of the ponds and finally from the Reedbed Hide there are sightings of - lapwing, little egret, coots, moorhen, common tern, great crested grebe, little grebe, mallard and reed warbler.
Further sightings from today and sightings from satellite sites can be found if you look at the Twitter feed of the Barnsley Birders - @BarnsleyBSG.
I'll leave you with a couple more photos of some of the lovely butterflies that are thoroughly enjoying this hot weather.
Lovely little holly blue on the marjoram in the little garden.
It's been great to have a few sightings of a small copper butterfly as they have been a bit scarce at Old Moor in recent years. It was another butterfly enjoying the wild marjoram, what a great food plant it is for all manner of butterflies, bees and insects.
And finally, a beautifully coloured and patterned peacock butterfly.
That's it, back soonish...