Wednesday 14 August 2013

Long Tailed Blue Butterfly at Kingsdown Leas Kent

I drove down to Dover this morning and walked the white cliffs from the monument at Bockhill Farm.
Firstly I walked the Leas to the west of the car park which is a national trust path full of wild flowers and alive with butterflies and then I walked to the the east right down to the golf club. I saw Small, Common and Chalkhill Blue, Small Tortoiseshell, Peacock, Painted Lady, Small, Large and Marbled Whites, Clouded Yellow, Gatekeeper, Meadow Brown, Wall Brown, Small and Large Skipper, White Letter Hairstreak, Small Copper, and eventually the best of the bunch in the form of the Long Tailed Blue which was feeding on some wild everlasting sweet pea.
A Red Kite flew over and Wheatear and Whinchat were seen getting ready for migration. From the cliffs I saw an Arctic Skua and several Fulmars.
On the way home a quick stop at Oare Marsh delivered another look at both the Bonaparte's Gull and the Temminck's Stint (who's legs looked much paler today) Six Bearded Tit also "pinged" along the reeds by the main path and a couple of Ruff, Curlew Sandpipers, plus RP and LRP represented the less obvious waders.

Clouded Yellow (A migrant from North Africa and southern Europe)

Long Tailed Blue (A rare migrant from Europe)
Painted Lady ( another migrant from North Africa)
The Painted Lady is the only butterfly to have ever been recorded in Iceland yet it cannot survive the British winter.
Marbled White

Common Blue
The Leas
Small Red Eyed Damselfly
Bockhill Monument
The walk from the monument to the golf club house is about a mile and the everlasting Sweet Pea that the Long Tailed Blues are feeding on runs from Ship House to the Golf Club House.

1 comment:

  1. Thank you for sharing your sighting and well sotted !

    ReplyDelete