I visited Aston Rowant in Oxfordshire this afternoon with Jenna, hoping to see another two butterflies we needed, Adonis Blue and Silver Spotted Skipper. This site was also chosen as an area for the reintroduction scheme for red kites, which were once common across Great
Britain, but they were hunted to extinction
across England and Scotland by the end of
the 20th century as people believed they
were killing lambs and game birds. In fact, Red Kites are mainly scavengers, unable to
kill anything larger than a young rabbit.Red Kites were reintroduced using Spanish birds in 1989 in a remarkably successful project run by the RSPB and the Nature Conservancy Council.The introduced birds first bred here in 1991; now there are now hundreds of breeding pairs, and many chicks have been exported to repopulate other suitable areas of England and Scotland.
On arrival at the parking lot, we walked down through the wooded area, which then opened up into a flower-rich chalk grassland. It didn't take long before I saw my first male and female Adonis blue, sky blue, with it's fine black lines that extend into the white fringe of their wings—stunning!
The bottom ditch was alive with chalkhill blues and common blues as we walked along.
Walking further up the hillside and looking through the short grass, a Silver Spotted Skipper landed in front of me.
Silver Spotted Skipper
This species of butterfly was looked for at the beginning of the month in Dorset, but we had no luck in finding them, but as we walked along, we found at least four different individuals.
The Silver Spotted Skippers were found in this short grass on the side of the hill
Other species of butterfly that were seen were:
Brown Argus
Small Heath
Good numbers of red kites were seen as we were looking for the butterflies.
An enjoyable day that was finished off with calling in at Grafton Woods in Worcestershire on the way home, where Jenna saw her first brown hairstreak.
