A few Butterflies and Dragonflies, North Norfolk, 12 August 2016

This was predominantly a trip up to some of my old stomping ground to catch up with some butterflies, orchids and dragonflies. As it turned out my fading memory of the orchids (Creeping Ladies Tresses) from c20 years ago failed me but I live to fight anotehr day with that one!

Warham Camp has now been a fairly long-standing site for an introduced population of Chalkhill Blues and in the right weather they are plentiful along the dicthes of the old Iron Age fort. I saw hundreds this morning but they were difficult to photograph as they were whizzing about everywhere. Also there I had  a single Painted Lady, Meadow Browns, Gatekeeper, Common Blue, Holly Blue, Small White, Large White, Green-veined White, Small Copper, Wall Brown and Comma.

On to Holham Meals where despite 2 hours of searching I failed with Creeping Ladies Tresses but nonetheless managed 2 Painted Ladies, Small Tortoiseshell, Red Admiral, Wall Brown, Peacock and Speckled Wood bringing my butterfly day total to 15 species. There were also plenty of Common Darters, a few Ruddy Darters and my first Migrant Hawker of the year.

My final port of call was a small pond on the Thorpe Marriot estate at Taverham. Here I'd had a tip-off that there were Small Red-eyed Damselfies present and sure enough I had about 10 there although they were stubbonly staying in the middle of the pond so difficult to photograph. Also there were Southern Hawker, Brown Hawker, Blue-tailed Damselfly and Azure Damselfly.