July was one of the most extraordinary months for sightings of butterflies, dragon and damselflies at Hockenhull Platts ever. I’m sure many of you will have completed the Butterfly Conservation Society “Great Butterfly Count”, a 15 minute study of a local site, garden, park, canal towpath etc. I completed a better than average count for the garden at Croft Close and after sending in the details to B.C.S. was encouraged to send in details of sightings at another site. I decided to choose a warm afternoon slot, and combined the survey with another I carry out regularly for the Cheshire Wildlife Trust. I followed a set route that we use for these records, and listed as accurately as possible all the butterflies, damsel & dragonflies I saw. The walk took far longer than the 15minutes required of the B.C.S. survey as there was so much to see, but the records I obtained were quite remarkable. I’m sure that this is the best list I have obtained in one session in all the years of recording at Hockenhull.

I have illustrated this article with some of the images taken on the reserve this year, with just one or two from previous years. Sadly the number of insects is already falling following the strong winds and rain of early August, and numbers of species and sightings are well down on the above list, but there are still quite a number of dragonflies about and August/September is a good time to spot the brown and southern hawkers and the common darter. I will review & list all the sightings for the year in a later month.

The list for that afternoon included;
Butterflies.
gatekeeper 25
speckled wood  3
small white 10+
green veined white 1
large white 20+
holly blue 1
common blue 2
comma 15+
peacock 20+
meadow brown 25+
red admiral 6

Dragon & Damselflies.
southern hawker 4
brown hawker 7
common darter 20+
banded demoiselle 75
blue tailed damselfly 20+
Common blue damselfly 40+
large red damselfly 2