I visited Northamptonshire today and had a really good day catching up with butterflies that I needed. I visited Weldon Woodland Park first, and it didn't take long walking around the site to connect with my first Marbled Whites.
7 Marbled Whites were seen in total
Next stop was Fermyn Woods, where I saw my first Silver-washed Fritillary straight away as we got out of the car.
There were butterflies practically everywhere on site, and then the magic moment came as I was photographing a white hairstreak up high in a tree. The purple emperor appeared in front of me, flew around, and then headed high into the forest—amazing!
This is what I had travelled down to see, and I was very lucky to be in the right place at the right time to see this one, as many people on site were looking.
This photograph is off the net but shows
the Purple emperor in all its glory
White Hairstreak
Other butterflies of note on site were:
White Admiral
Comma
Ringlet, which took a fancy to Jenna's hand!
Small copper
Gatekeeper
On the way back to the car, to top it all off, a Southern Hawker put in an appearance to finish off a great day!