karen's country calendar

 Today was the first warm sunny day since the recent hot spell so I took the opportunity to visit Monks Wood in the hope of finding the elusive black hairstreaks low enough to photograph.  It was 10 am and warming up when I parked up and made my way along the grassy path to the entrance and it was here I saw my first meadow browns of the year.    I knew where to look for the hairstreaks  having been given specific instructions from a facebook friend and when I saw a man bending down taking photographs I hurried my steps to see if he had found any... "no" he replied.  I then retraced my steps to go to another area and as I was looking about, two gentlemen and a lady arrived also looking.   We all spotted a few flying up high but as before none came down low enough,  I was told that the females normally come down first followed by the males but it might still be too early in the day or they were at the end of their flight season.  Whe...

 Having read the Adonis Blue was now on the wing at Church Hill, Therfield Heath, I decided to visit this morning to see if I could locate them. Last year I was a bit too late in the morning as temperatures had risen and this pretty turquoise butterfly was constantly in flight so this time I went a bit earlier today in the hope that I would find it settling to enable some photographs and I wasn,t disappointed.   There were several dozen males on the grassland and a couple of females together with some tiny Brown Argus butterflies which were also a first sighting this year.  They were the only two species seen today apart from one brimstone but in a few weeks time hopefully there should be some of the summer butterflies present.  (Apparently a marsh fritillary has been seen in the area in the past but not seen so far this year)  Adonis blue male  Adonis blue female A late flowering Pascal Flower amongst the feathery tops of the earlier flowe...