Our first visit to Old Winchester Hill this year. As could be expected, the Hill looked really dry and parched ...
There were still flowers around for the butterflies to feed from, but not nearly as much as last year, and it showed in terms of numbers of species and numbers of individuals we saw. Eleven species in total, still, but missing all of the larger nymphalids, for instance (maybe they've already started hibernating?) Of the two specialties for the site, silver-spotted skippers and adonis blues, we did see several silver-spotted skippers ...
... but not a single adonis blue. Possibly, we're still a bit too early for the second brood of this species, just like what happened when we butterflied on Old Winchester Hill early August last year?
The lack of many common species, and the low numbers in several species (although the chalk hill blues were present in abundance still) does make it start to feel a bit like the beginning of the end of the 2022 butterfly season …
Anyway, here's what we did see today (one = 1; few = 2-4; several = 5-9; many = 10+):
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