Marsh Frit & friends

I had earmarked the weekend of 20/05 & 21/05 to pay, my now annual homage to several of my favourite butterfly sites to connect with five of the scarcer species. Gareth Blockley was to join me this year. We both had an element of flexibility for the whole weekend and with the forecast for the Saturday a bit showery, we decided to use Sunday as the day to go.

The plan was to connect with Pearl-Bordered & Marsh Fritillary, Duke of Burgundy, Adonis & Small Blues. At this point in the calendar, it is a bit of a cross over with all these species and so there was no guarantee we would see all five but we would certainly give it a bash!

First stop was the sun-kissed Cirencester Park Woods. The hope here was to locate some Pearl Bordered Fritillaries that usually frequent a few key areas here. Unfortunately, despite a prolonged search, we just couldn't find one despite a few decent patches of sun. This was an area I saw several in last year so it was pretty disappointing we couldn't locate one. Perhaps the previous day's heavy showers had delayed their activity a touch? Who knows!

Anyways, with time pressing, we moved onto Strawberry Banks, a short drive along the Stroud road. Well I say a short drive, however the windy, single track road to the site was closed, meaning an even more convoluted route than usual! Anyways, eventually we arrived and the search for Marsh Fritillaries began...surely we wouldn't miss out here!

No we wouldn't and in fact, they were easy to find. Not quite the numbers I've seen from previous years, however there were definitely some emerging while we were there, so they were certainly not at their peak as yet.

I just have to see these every year. They are just stunning! We spent quite a bit of time here enjoying them floating about. We also found a single Small Blue, plenty of Dingy Skippers and a few very nice Lesser Butterfly Orchids.

After a good while at Strawberry Banks, we moved onto Stroud for our last site, the picturesque Rodborough Common. We walked down to the steep, sheltered slopes, towards the southern end of the common.

A good scour of the area produced at least two Duke of Burgundy, several Small Blues, a good scattering of Brown Argus & at least 2 Common Blue. Despite our best efforts, we couldn't find any Adonis Blue but it was touch and go as to whether any would be out yet. 

That concluded a great day out. Three out of five wasn't too bad, plus all three were new butterflies for Gareth. I make that a successful mission!