Spring finally appears to have sprung!
After what appeared to be a continuous stream of never-ending fronts of wet and windy weather spring finally seems to have arrived in Northamptonshire, and we seem to be off to a good start on the recording front with around 2000 records already received. At the time of writing (6th May) the Dingy Skipper, Grizzled Skipper, Green Hairstreak and Small Heath have all started to emerge at our key sites for these species. Last year the cold and wet spring led to the Dingy and Grizzled Skippers, and Green Hairstreak, having a poor season so let’s hope they all fare better this year. I couldn’t resist a visit to one of our best nature reserves, the Wildlife Trust BCNs Old Sulehay and Ring Haw reserve yesterday and it was an absolute delight to so many spring butterflies on the wing. Here are a few photos from the visit.
Small Heath, Ring Haw
Dingy Skipper, Old Sulehay
Grizzled Skipper, Old Sulehay
Yours truly, finally enjoying some sunshine and butterflies
Brimstone, Ring Haw
As the season starts if anyone would like to remind themselves of the key identification points of similar species you can visit the Articles section of this website to view my Identifying Confusion Species articles. Here you will find detailed photos and descriptions describing all the key differences between the similar-looking butterflies we have in Northamptonshire. It is also worth mentioning that we are coming to the end of our current five-year recording period, and we still have a few 2km squares with no records, so if you feel you could help out fill in some blanks please let me know which ones you intend to visit. If you would like to contribute to some of the blank squares on the border, make sure you submit a high-resolution grid reference (using the iRecord app would be good for this) to show the record is within the county boundary otherwise the record goes to a neighbouring county. It’s not that we don’t want these records to go to other counties of course, but it would still show the square as still being empty of Northamptonshire records so if you’re going through the effort specifically for Northamptonshire records please be mindful of that.
That’s it from me for now. I hope everyone reading this has an enjoyable, and hopefully butterfly-filled, start to the season and I will look forward to receiving your records!