Last Friday I went down to Kent to meet up with my friend Keith and his wife Elaine, who live on the Isle of Grain on the North Kent Coast. In the morning Keith and I went for a walk at Northward Hill, an RSPB reserve. However, the highlights at this time of year are the Butterflies and the Dragonflies.
The first area we crossed was grassland
Her we found lots of Meadow Browns, Small Heath and Marbled White Butterflies.
Then we entered into the wood land rides and saw a large Skipper, plus more Meadow Browns and Marbled Whites.
Keith directed me to the area where White-Letter Hairstreaks are found. This species is only found in a few places. It is found on Elm trees and was seriously impacted by the loss of Elm trees due to Dutch Elm disease and hedgerow clearance. It took a while before we could see them flying around the tree tops but eventually we got views of them perched and Keith managed to get a photo.
Other species seen were Red Admiral, Large and Small White, Comma, and Speckled Wood.
Reaching the look out, which gives views out over the rest of the reserve, we paused to admire the view before retracing our path back through the rides.
We stopped briefly to have another look at the White-Letter Hairstreaks before returning to our starting point across the meadow by a different path, where we added Small Skipper, Green-veined White and Ringlet to the species list as well as seeing more Meadow Brown and Marbled White. During our walk we also saw a lot of newly emerged Common darter along with Black-tailed Skimmer, Migrant Hawker, Common Blue Damselfly and Blue-tailed Damselfly.
An excellent morning walk.
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