Dancersend NR more butterflies

Common Blue
Common Blue

Thought I would try out my newly found butterfly id skills, so Helen and I took her mum up to Dancersend NR, to see what we could find. We parked up at the pumping complex car park, and headed into the reserve. Dancersend is notorious for Duke of Burgundy butterflies so there was the potential to see a very rare one.

We headed round the reserve taking our usual route along the field to the bottom of the hill with steps, then turn left at the top[ and come down into the reserve via the foot path and over the large log. We stopped to take some pictures of some of the wild flowers for later identification, although I think Nancy had already figured out what most of them were. We did not see too many butterflies but I spotted a Cardinal Beetle. There were lots of Blackcaps or Garden Warblers singing.

Cardinal Beetle

There were some volunteers working in one of the paddocks, it looked like they were chopping the young hawthorns back to stop them taking over. We then headed back up hill back toward the car and got a few of the butterflies I learnt about yesterday. We sat for a wile on the Susan Cowdy bench, she was obviously an important person in BBOWT as there is a hide at Weston Turville reservoir. We then headed back, but on the way there was a spot that seemed protected, we could see two types Orchid growing, one was Fly Orchid.

Fly Orchid

We were soon back at the car, the weekend almost over, although I had one last appointment with my camera and the church, I needed to get a complete 360 degree panorama of the church, watch this space for the results. The final tally of butterflies was Common Copper, Common White, Orange Tip, Green Veined White, Brimstone, Peacock, Blue something, Grizzled Skipper, Speckled Wood, and finally Red Admiral.