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30
May 2010
With
the breeze (Force 3
gusting to Force 5) it felt too cool for butterflies,
although the temperature was recorded at 18.8
°C at 1:00
pm when I visited Mill
Hill. A few
Holly
Blues were seen in the Hawthorn scrub
on Mill Hill. The first butterfly to appear on the southern part of Mill
Hill was a bright red Peacock,
the only one of the day. On the transect 1.2 acres of the lower slopes
the count in a timed 11 minutes was 122 male Adonis
Blues and nine females,
including a mating pair. This count extrapolates
to about 350 Adonis Blues
on Mill Hill. Later, I saw at least three
more mating pairs.
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Identification needed at practiced eye as there were frequent male Common Blues on the lower slopes estimated at about twenty. The identification was tricky on several occasions as some of the Adonis were past their best and the black markings on the wing fringe of the wings was almost absent. The Horseshoe Vetch, Hippocrepis comosa, was also past its best and thousands of the flowers had already ceased.
