isle of wight Day 4-glorious sunshine and insect bonanza

Today was very warm indeed. We decided that we would go to the western side of the island to a part of the island known as shippards chine where my mum and dad and brother could go swimming and such. I went with them because the warmth and the cliffs over there meant that there might be glanville frittillarys, found only on this island in the whole of the UK. As soon as we landed I set off along the cliffs to try and see if there were any about. The first butterfly I found was a skipper. Before yesterday I would class every skipper as either large or small, but since the essex skipper seemed to be a reasonable i.d bet I was unsure as to weather I should put a species to this one. I Think that it is a small skipper, but i have no confidence in my ability to i.d what is a significant amount of black on the underside of the antenna, although there doesn't appear to be much here, so I'm going small skipper with this one. -small skipper There were a great deal of butterflies-common blue, large white, meadow brown, gatekeeper and small copper. Then I found one that made my heart skip a beat, but when it landed it turned out to be so close but yet so far. The butterfly in question was a dark-Green fritillary, which is always really nice to see, but can be infuriating when your looking for a different type of fritillary and they all look the same!

-Dark green fritillary

My dad text me telling me to head back to the car, as we hadn't actually cleared up what we were doing for that day. When I turned around I spotted this scoona ship near the needles which seemed to be screaming out for a photo.

-Scoona near the needles

I had only walked about 300m away from the car due to the number of distractions that there were. It didn't take long for me to walk back to the car. My dad said that they were going off in their canoes, I said that I would walk south along the cliffs to see if i could find any glanville fritillarys.

My Mum showed me a dragonfly that they had found in the middle of the car park, badly injured, probably hit by a car. It was a southern hawker but it was in a bad way, so we put it under in the car to see if it would recover and fly away.

I decided to go for a look on the other side of the road to see if there was the water body that the dragonfly could have come from. I had a look But there were only fields, so I decided to walk south along the cliffs as was my original intention.

-wounded southern hawker

I walked south along the cliff path encountering a small stream, but not substantial enough for a dragonfly. There was little to add to the species list for the walk until I reached a stream that was well covered in plants, and it was there that I found my first new species for the day. If I hadn't looked closely I would had discarded it as a dull moth of X-description, but as it happened it landed right in front of me, allowing me to see that it was actually a dingy skipper, a skipper that i can easily identify

-Dingy Skipper

The butterfly didn't stay around for very long, so I didn't get many photos,m but I got a few, enough to prove that I was still on track for a new species of butterfly every day.

The small river was called Brook Chine. I had a close look at it and flushed a dragonfly, which was my first tickable for the holiday! It moved slowly enough for me to say that it was a golden-ringed dragonfly, a species I had only ever seen in Scotland before, but still spectacular, Britain's second biggest dragonfly.

I was walking up river tracking the dragonfly hoping for a photo when I flushed a demoiselle, The fact that its wings were black when it took off told me enough, that I had my first odonata tick of the holiday-a beautiful demoiselle, annoyingly it was headed downstream so i had to double back on myself to catch up with it.

It landed for a few minuets so i could get some record shots, but sadly it moved off and I lost it, as there was no path up the river and the various brambles and nettles made moving up and down the river slightly difficult.

-beautiful demoiselle

After I lost it i headed back up stream to try and track down the golden-ringed dragonfly. I was pleasantly surprise to find that there was not only one on the river but that there was two, each holding a territory and fighting regularly, but also landing regularly, which allowed me to get some photos of these much loved classic dragonflies.

-golden ringed dragonfly

they were great to see and spent about half an hour watching them. It was only when I tore my attention away that I spotted another dingy skipper on the other side of the river. I decided not to jump over but to go the whole way around to try and avoid disturbing it, as it seemed pretty well settled.

On the other side of the river, but not near the riverside, the road above i spotted the first bird of the day, although I was unsure of its true I.d until I got close enough to get a photo which proved it was a kestrel, as I thought it would be, over a peregrine.

-Kestrel

climbing down the bank to the river I found the dingy skipper in the place where I had left it and so was able to get down to take a few more photos, although once more it was too flighty and so I was only able to get a few, although they were better than last time.

-Dingy skipper

I jumped over back to the original side of the river and as i did so I spotted the demosielle again, which I was quite pleased about. I approached it slowly and managed to get into position to photograph without disturbing it.

It was a surprise to see one here, as it was not a species that I had run up on the records as their records seemed too scattered to be bothered with. But even so, the fast flowing coastal stream seemed to suit this delicate animal for some strange reason.

There is little more to say so just enjoy the photos I took...

-beautiful demoiselle

After that second encounter with the demoiselle, I decided that it was probably an idea to head back, as it was approaching lunch time, but as i popped up into the car park at Brook (not the one we were parked in) I heard a noise much closer than it had been all day. The song was off a male yellowhammer, the "Little bit of bread but no cheese" that actually sounds absolutely nothing like that.

I had a quick scout around, but couldn't spot him. He sounded close so I decided to pursue him to see if i could track it down, and I did, but in the most obvious place possible, on top of the sign. I tried to get as close as i could, using his singing as an indication as to how well settled he was. I actually managed to get quite close to him, and therefore managed to get the shots of male yellowhammer that I had been wanting for some time.

-Male yellowhammer I made it back to the car and then spent the rest of the day in the sea. After that we went up to freshwater to see what was about, but everywhere was shut and the only thing of interest was a fulmars nest in the wall.

-Fulmar

So it was a good day overall, the only bad part being the damaged dragonfly, which sadly died after a few hours. The fact that I saw some live dragonflies made me feel better though, and they were also the first dragonflies I had seen all holiday!