Saturday 6 June 2015

#30DaysWild: An island adventure

Day 5 and 6 of the #30DaysWild challenge was a little different to the norm. I headed off to the Isle of Wight to help Hampshire and IOW Wildlife Trust survey for Reddish Buff - an extremely rare species of moth in Britain.

We travelled over yesterday evening, set up 6 moth traps, and waited patiently for it to get dark. Although the temperature dropped very rapidly, by 11pm we had managed to attract two Reddish buff to our traps!

The moment we found a Reddish buff
The next morning (today) we went back to the site to see what we could find in the daytime. There were lots of butterflies about and I saw my first Green hairstreak, Common blue, and Large skipper of the year. We also spotted Small heath, Brimstone, Holly blue and Red admiral too.

Green hairstreak
In the afternoon we headed to Ventnor on the island and saw tens of Glanville fritillaries - beautiful butterflies that I have never managed to see before. There was also a Wall lizard, and a couple of Hummingbird Hawkmoths around too.

Glanville Fritillary
It was a bit windy for underwing shots...

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