Hillier Gardens, one final hurrah

Although I was pretty much convinced that our visit to Old Winchester Hill last week would be our final day of butterflying this year, the weather was so nice this morning that we took the snap decision to go to Hillier Gardens for the day, for one more butterfly day. Last year, in September, we only saw four species of butterflies at Hillier Gardens, and so we certainly didn't expect to see the 14 species we saw in July this year. 

Surprisingly, and possibly due to the warm sunny weather, we actually saw a total of nine species, seven of which on a single large Buddleia bush! Included in those seven species was small tortoiseshell, which we hadn't seen at Hillier before. 

By far the most common species were brimstones, small whites and red admirals (the latter especially on and around Buddleia bushes).

In addition to the nine butterfly species, we saw a hummingbird hawk-moth, and I consider hawk-moths as honorary butterflies (even though, technically, of course they aren't). I tried to take a picture, but it was just too fast-moving and didn't stay in one place long enough. 

In terms of odo's, many common darters, as expected, but also a few golden-ringed dragonflies, which were new to us for Hillier Gardens last time.

Just before we left, I saw this heavily-damaged peacock fluttering about; it's clearly been through the war and back! To me, it really captured today almost surely being the final hurrah of the 2021 butterfly season ...

 

But we still have today's tables to present (one = 1; few = 2-4; several = 5-9; many = 10+)! Mentally add the hummingbird hawk-moth ....