Lankham Bottom - Sat 17 Jul

Ellie had to pop in to Sherborne to collect her Wedding Dress, so I kept out of the way and and popped down the road to Lankham Bottom in the hope that there might be some Chalkhill Blues on the wing. However, despite spending over an hour searching I saw no Blues.

There was a constant stream of Skylarks and Yellowhammers singing and a Lesser Whitethroat was seen flying between two clumbs of vegetation. A couple of Common Buzzards were about, including one which appeared to be a juvenile. The only other bird of note was a young Stonechat.

On the butterfly front I saw a few Marbled Whites and a couple of Meadow Browns. A single Painted Lady was present, at least one Peacock was and a few Red Admirals were about:

A fair number of Gatekeepers were present:

Finally, I also saw a couple of Small Skippers:

The orange on the antennae distinguishing them from the very similar Essex Skipper.