Butterflies and Honey B's

After hearing a rumour of a Small Blue site in Yorkshire last year I discovered its locality this year and having a couple of hours free last Saturday afternoon I thought I'd go check it out, the likelihood is that has been a release site sometime in the past but they are doing well and at least 20-30 were flying around, also an early Painted Lady. In the evening whilst watering the garden I disturbed a little micro moth that promptly landed again in full view, a Diamond-back Moth, I know there has been quite an influx of this migratory moth along the East Coast they are obviously well inland too.

a mating pair

also some nice fresh Common Blues

and Common Blue Damselfly

the tiny Diamond-back Moth in the garden

On Sunday the 5th as it was forecast to be a nice day I thought I would head up to Wykeham Forest to try for the Honey Buzzards, it was a good start with a couple of Turtle Doves purring away near the car park but at the viewpoint it proved a bit slow at first however after a couple of distant Goshawks and several Common Buzzards eventually getting up a Honey flew across at around 10-30am, displayed a couple of times then drifted to the other side of the valley (a local Scarborough birder later informed me that was the first sighting of the year) I hung around into the early afternoon hoping for another sighting which never came but a Red Kite, a closer Goshawk and a pair of Peregrines entertained, passerine highlights included displaying Siskin, several Crossbills flying over and a Garden Warbler in the shrubbery in front of the seats. After lunch the intention was to try for Pearl Bordered Fritillaries before heading up into Bransdale but there had been a bad accident and the area was gridlocked so I just ended up going straight to Bransdale, a pleasant afternoon spent here with the usual culprits highlight were several Whinchats and a family party of Ring Ouzels in the usual area although I failed to connect with Redstart again.

Honey Buzzard flew past reasonably close but camera was on wrong settings

young Ring Ouzel hiding

then came out