Blue flash!

Normally, we visit Old Winchester Hill two or three times a year, but for some reason, we only went there once this year, a little over a week ago. Then, we saw a record number of butterfly species (21!), but didn't see two of the Hill's specialities: silver-spotted skipper and adonis blue. 

Given the forecast of low wind and broken clouds, we decided to try OWH again, hoping to see those two species there. Once the sun came out and it noticeably warmed up, we saw loads of small heaths and meadow browns.

Soon we spotted the first of a few silver-spotted skippers!

As to blues, we saw several common blues and many chalk hill blues; the latter were not as fresh as earlier this year ...

And then, among a few common blues, a clear blue flash! Adonis blue!

We saw at least one more individual, which clearly had escaped from some predator. Difficult as it is to capture that electric blue iridescence, this picture comes close I think. 

Despite the end of the season approaching (most gatekeepers we saw were faded and/or tatty), we still saw a total of 16 butterfly species. As well as a single common darter.

I've said it before, but this is almost surely the final large butterfly table of the 2023 season (as well as my 100th blog post; one = 1; few = 2-4; several = 5-9; many = 10+):