Monday, July 22, 2013

The Wonder of Whitely

After reading Alan Thornbury's excellent blog, I was inspired to visit Whitely Pastures today. He had seen 2 males here a couple of days ago, one down on the track.
Whitely Pastures holds a special place in my heart, as it is where I saw my first Purple Emperor in the mid-80s. At the time my wife Melanie and I had been searching the wood fruitlessly and having not seen one had given up. We returned to the Mini only to find a male imbibing on our front tyre. From that day I was totally hooked.
Whitely Pastures is a difficult place to see Iris as the population is low density most years, the public use the wood for jogging and cycling and the surrounding area has been well developed with offices over recent years.
Today I struggled, but eventually saw 2 females. One at 13.30 purposefully gliding high over the main ride and another sallow searching at 13.45.
I did speak to two elderly ladies who told me they had seen 8, and then promptly pointed out a White Admiral saying 'There's one'!!!
Perhaps they had seen HIM, but if they had seen any they had all cleared off as soon as I arrived on the spot!

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