White-letter day!

- more of that later...

but first of all it's cuckoo time at Blacktoft Sands

Wednesday July 16th

A magpie was already feeling the heat.

Magpie

Little egrets were plentiful.

Little Egret Little Egret

The path to Ousefleet was closed for haymaking but no-one had told this pheasant!

Pheasant

At Marshland the spotted redshanks, mixed in with some commons, were showing well.

Spotted Redshank Spotted Redshank

One green sandpiper.

Green Sandpiper Green Sandpiper Green Sandpiper

Up to eight greenshanks.

Greenshank

And then the cuckoo appeared. I'll still be trying for a really top quality cuckoo photo but these are better than my previous efforts.

Cuckoo

Big fat juicy caterpillar in bill!

Cuckoo Cuckoo

Exploring Tocketts Lythe near Guisborough

Thursday 17th July

Sheila and I headed north in the afternoon planning to find the abandoned old road to Skelton at NZ 622 172 in the hope of locating a lifer butterfly: white-letter hairstreaks. We walked up the hill from where we had parked alongside the A173 near the north end of Mucky Lane. We soon saw butterflies. Commas.

Comma Comma

A few likely suspects flitted into view and were gone over the tree tops. We returned to the brambles near the top of the rise hoping the butterflies would come down to nectar in the late afternoon. 

White Letter Hairstreak White Letter Hairstreak White Letter Hairstreak

Comma, worker bee and white-letter sharing the flowers.

White Letter Hairstreak

Still time to go elsewhere we decided to head for South Gare near Redcar and look for grayling on the slag fields [try NZ 560 267]. That proved instantaneous. There were lots of them but they disappear on landing as they are so brilliantly camouflaged.

Grayling

Whilst I looked for more this [juvenile?] stonechat perched up for me. Stonechat

Stonechat

Coming up over a boulder...

Grayling

The carline thistles carlina vulgaris were in flower.

Carline Thistle

Friday 18th July was one of those very rare days when the weather let me down. The forecast was misleading, the wind got up, the temperature plummeted out on the North York Moors [I put a sweater on for the first time in weeks] and then the rain came. No small pearl-bordered, dark green fritillaries or marbled whites. Just one solitary small skipper.

Small Skipper

I drove home. There'll be other days......