No Birds in this post! - Brockholes NR LWT - 1st July 2011

For me, July is by far the least 'birdy' month in the year, so I thought I would start the month concentrating on Odonata and Butterfly down at the patch. I spent a couple of hours by the bramble patch by the style to the eastern end of Boilton Wood.
This patch is very good for Butterfly and with it being just below a couple of young Elm, it is ideal habitat for White-letter Hairstreak.
It took about half an hour of waiting before a large burst of sun brought down a rather stunning White-letter Hairstreak seen by myself and a handful of LWT staff. This is a first for me, so I felt very fortunate that is was so obliging!

Whilst waiting for the Hairstreak to appear I saw a couple of first for the years in the form of a male Broad-bodied Chaser which is one of my favourite dragonfly species due to them being very obliging for photography compared to some of the other species like Black-tailed Skimmer.
For rarity value, the star of the day was a Hummingbird Hawkmoth that appeared on a patch of nettles next to the brambles then made its way across the front of the patch. This was present for two minutes and seen my Bill Gregory, Mike Foley, Robin Shenton and myself. A personal sight first and the first to be seen since the the LWT took over the site.Hummingbird Hawkmoth photo by Mike Foley