A cooler day?

With another heat-wave forecast for the later part of the week GH, GK and BG decided to do Transect 19 on Monday when the temperature was only 28 degrees.
 
Starting at Section 11 (the downward slope of Stagbury Field), we were straight into Chalkhill Blue territory and counted 12, and a further 18 on the top path along the field's edge (Section 10) as we finished our walk. On previous weeks we saw mainly the powder blue males but this week there was a good number of the brown females. Meadow Brown numbers are still holding up fairly well and across all transect sections except Section 5, the link between Fames Rough and Harholt Plantation where we seldom see anything to count anyway. 124 MBs were recorded. The number of Common Blues suddenly shot up to a count of 60, their highest weekly count of 2022.

​Count Details:
124 Meadow Brown
  60 Common Blue
  30 Chalkhill Blue
    8 Small Heath
    7 Gatekeeper
    3 Small Copper
    1 Large Skipper
    1 Small White
    1 Speckled Wood
 
Summary: 235 Butterflies from 9 species.
Click on butterfly names for more info.

Next Wednesday, 17th August, it's hoped that as many WoodChippers as possible will join the Surrey Wildlife Trust/Butterfly Conservation Trust work party with an aim of taking out an area of encroaching thorn scrub in Fames Rough. As reported regularly in our blog in recent years, the scrub is steadily taking over what was until recently a butterfly-rich flower meadow. See recent emails from Andy, Graham K and Richard C for more details of the work.
​Or contact Graham K direct: smilingnicely@me.com

Survey by Brian Gardner, Graham H and Graham K submitted to Butterfly Conservation (UKBMS).  ​
​Report by Brian Gardner. Pic by Graham K. ​​Click to enlarge.

Common Blue, Hill Wood Field