Aldbury Nowers - Summer
The sunny weather has greatly benefitted butterflies, with lots of marbled whites, meadow browns and ringlets being seen over the last few weeks. The first large skipper was seen on 2/06 and there are now many skippers flying around which can test your identification skills.
Dark green fritillaries can be seen flying fast over the grassland, try any of the enclosures for a sighting of these beautiful orange butterflies. They can often be seen nectaring on thistles. The larger silver washed fritillary can be seen along the Ridgeway in the open areas of the woodland. Both fritillaries have beautifully marked underwings which provide a good way of identifying them when resting. The unrelated but similar comma can also be seen in these glades but is smaller and has jagged wing edges.
A hummingbird hawkmoth has been seen (w/c 12/07/10) in the furthest northern enclosure, nectaring from flowers during the day. Look out for a small, fast flying moth which does resemble a hummingbird! It was still present this week (w/c 19/07), flying around very fast.
With leaves covering the trees and bird song dying down birds are becoming harder to spot. The odd blackcap and whitethroat are still singing together with chiffchaff. Many birds are nesting around the reserve and will be busy feeding young over the next few weeks. Look out for the mistle thrush which often feed amongst the grassland flowers and can look surprisingly large when they fly off.
A particularly beautiful flower to look out for is the horseshoe vetch, which is very obvious in short grassland. Sorrel (the food plant of the small copper butterfly) is growing throughout the enclosures and on very bare ground look for the tiny fumitory. Small clusters of harebells can be found in shorter areas of grassland and the white flowered valerian has started to appear, which is heavily scented. Wild thyme also has a beautiful smell and thanks to all the management work on the reserve has started to appear in the southern enclosures.
