July 2018 - Part 2
12th July 2018 - (Thursday, Csütörtök)
My afternoon visit was under mainly blue skies, and the temperature was quite hot at about 25 degs. Butterflies seen were: Silver-studded Blue, Reverdin's Blue, Short-tailed Blue, Holly Blue, Common Blue (including a mating pair), Lesser Spotted Fritillary, Eastern Pale Clouded Yellow, Dryad (about 10 seen !), Meadow Brown, Small Heath, Dingy Skipper, Grizzled Skipper, and Wall Brown = 13 species. I also saw 'some sort of Swallowtail', but it just kept going without resting. A juvenile Red-backed Shrike was waiting to be fed in an Oak tree near The Bowl entrance. I found a nice fresh female Black-tailed Skimmer at Rock Bath 2, and I also saw a 'blue dragonfly' in flight near the reedbed. It may have been a male of the same species, but it flew off over the reeds, never to be seen again !
14th July 2018 - (Saturday, Szombat)
On-site from 1045 until 1215. Hot and sunny, but also very windy, which made insect photography very difficult. It was especially hard to get airborne shots of the male Blue-eyed Hawker dragonfly. It is never an easy subject as they always hover until you're about to press the button, and then they zoom off to catch an insect. Coupled with that problem, were the strong gusts of wind, but I managed to get a few reasonable record images. It was almost exactly a year since it was recorded in the SQ for the first time. One or two juvenile Red-backed Shrike were calling to their parents for food. Butterflies seen were: Small Heath, Reverdin's Blue, Silver-studded Blue, Grizzled Skipper, Dingy Skipper, Dryad (about 8 seen, all inside the SQ), Meadow Brown, Small White, and Eastern Pale Clouded Yellow = 9 species.
16th July 2018 - (Monday, Hétfő)
As I walked past the big Dog Rose bush which is at the entrance to The Bowl, a cloud of about SEVEN Dryads took to the air. There must have been about 15 inside the site, and a further 10 or so at the adjacent meadows and track. Very hot and sunny, with the usual gusty wind.
17th July 2018 - (Tuesday, Kedd)
19th July 2018 - (Thursday, Csütörtök)
20th July 2018 - (Friday, Péntek)
Around lunchtime, the whole area was subjected to large thunderstorms, and the mountains almost disappeared behind 'walls' of 45 deg rain. Therefore, when I set off for the SQ later, I quite expected to find a reasonable waterfall in operation. However, as I approached the site, the main road appeared to be 'bone dry'. Exploring the site, it was obvious that some rain had fallen there - there was some water in Rock Bath 1 and Rock Bath 2 - but it was not the torrent I'd expected. The butterflies and moths were just recovering after the rainfall, finding good resting places as the Sun tried to find a way through the cloud cover. Butterflies seen were: Reverdin's Blue, Dryad (about 20 seen), Short-tailed Blue, Common Blue, Grizzled Skipper, Meadow Brown, Chestnut Heath, Sooty Copper (both sexes), Silver-studded Blue, Hungarian Skipper, Lesser Spotted Fritillary, Dingy Skipper, Small Heath, Small White, and Nickerl's Fritillary = 15 species.