Having spent Saturday morning with the Coton Orchard mothing team, I missed out on a Butterfly Conservation mothing and butterflying event at Chippenham Fen NNR, which overlapped. So, I headed up to the Fen on the Sunday morning.
I spent a couple of hours there after a horrendous number of detours to find the place. Once on the site, I spotted lots of very flitty and active Ringlet butterflies, numerous Skippers, and a single White Admiral high overhead. Unfortunately, didn’t see any Purple Emperor butterflies, which had been my primary target.
I hadn’t realised that this Fen is a site for Scarlet Tiger moth of which there were lots. Also spotted the fairly common Yellow Shell moth, a couple of un-ID micros, and I did catch a very fleeting glimpse of the Fen’s signature Lepidopteral species, the incredibly rare and fenland-only Silver-barred moth, which was one of the mothing targets for the group there yesterday.
And another nice sighting – juvenile Great Spotted Woodpecker (red underparts and size separate it from the much rarer Lesser Spotted).
