After physio in Deal I popped along to the Sandwich Bay Bird Observatory, hoping that someone would point me in the direction of the Marsh Helleborine flowers and hoping to pick up my SBBO annual report. I say annual report, but for the last few years it hasn't surfaced. This year, with a monumental effort from Ian Hodgson, the Warden, and other writers and helpers, too numerous to name, the catch up volume has arrived, 2001-2007. It will take a while to digest but it's a great effort.
Across from the Observatory the wild flower meadow was full of butterflies, for the first time this year it seemed like one of the summers of my childhood when I first developed my passion for butterflies and other wildlife. This Small Copper was one of dozens of the striking species.
As I've said before the two common "small" skippers, the Small Skipper and the Essex Skipper are very similar, you need to look at the tips of the antennae to separate them, all the ones that I managed to see properly appeared to be Small Skippers, although Ian assured me that Essex Skippers were around as well.
In these conditions it's find a bramble patch and it will be covered in butterflies (and other insects as well). There were loads of my favourite Marbled Whites.
And a large number of Small Whites, most of which looked very fresh.
Meadow Browns were numerous, but I only saw two Common Blues, both of which declined to pose for the camera.
The Southern Marsh Orchids are coming to an end but some spikes are still quite decent.
This one was in a shady ride between the mist nets.
There were several day flying moth around, notably Yellow Shell and this Clouded Border.
Nearby there were loads of spikes of Marsh Helleborine, which I didn't do justice to at all, and will need to return to get better pictures.
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