Life & Death in Hurstpierpoint!!

With the foul weather of yesterday disappearing and despite the strong wind, Margie and I decided a visit to the Patch was called for, hadn't been for a couple of weeks what with work commitments, laziness and being distracted by last weeks trip to Dungeness, not really confident we would see much but we were in for a pleasant surprise, arrived at the parking space off the London Road, to find the sky full of Swifts feeding low over the rape field, would say well over a hundred and plenty of Swallows and Housemartins mixed in, a fantastic sight, next we realised that there were also hundreds of White Butterflies in the field as well, nature in all it's abundance!! Unfortunately our pictures do not really do either event justice and despite firing off hundreds of shots results were predictably poor, they are just to fast for me!! Although I managed one of an airplane don't see many of them these days!

Swift

Swift

White Butterfly

White Butterfly

Housemartin

Jet Plane

We walked the edge of the field, the margin is lovely, full of Oxide Daisies looking fantastic in with the golden grass. Not sure who was more surprised the Roe Deer or us when we came across it standing at the edge of the field, but it soon disappeared into the Rape.

Couple of Poppies

Field Margin

Surprised Deer

We went straight across the into the long glades ,out of the wind, there were bugs everywhere with good numbers of Butterflies, including, Ringlet, Meadow Brown, Marbled White, Skippers, Peacock and Red Admiral. There were also Beautiful Demoiselles and some bigger Dragonflies that didn't hang around to be ID'd 

Not sure on this one Small White perhaps?

Peacock

Red Admiral

Beautiful Demoiselle

Meadow Brown

Gatekeeper

Marbled White

Cardinal Beetle perhaps? by Margie

Ringlet by Margie

Large Skipper by Margie

We came out into more open territory, and windier, Buzzard went over, but birds as I suspected were hard to find, could hear plenty, but with thick vegetation everywhere, were pretty difficult to see. We tried the area where we had seen the Spotted Flycatcher on previous visits but with no luck, did the circuit along the road then back past the church, more Hirundines here but didn't even try to get pictures. We found a nice little patch of bramble and nettles which was alive with insects, such important habitat, lots more of the previously seen Butterflies although were a couple of Commas here and a Blue Butterfly that never settled so not sure what sort, best of all there was a large Oak Tree which shaded this patch, out of the corner of my eye I glimpsed a small pale Butterfly flitting about in the canopy, gets the bins on it, Purple Hairstreak whoop!! Turned out the tree was full of them fantastic views of what is my favourite Butterfly.I think also Margie may have got a pic of a Grayling at this point if anyone could confirm. Be handy as well if someone could ID the Damselfly as well please

White-legged Damselfly

Purple Hairstreak x2

Then

Purple Hairstreak x3

Comma

Small Tortoiseshell by Margie

By now we were flagging a bit as some prat had forgotten to bring any water, so headed back through the glades to the open rape field, if anything there were more Swifts and Hirundines than before, I had just said to Margie, there has got to be a Hobby about it's perfect time of day, perfect conditions and plenty of food for one, when I was alerted by the alarm calls of several crows harassing a bird ,Buzzard denied!! however as I watched their antics through the bins another bird appeared distant and high heading this way ,a Hobby ,now it should be noted before you marvel at my Nostradamus like ability to predict the arrival of certain species of birds and start pestering me for the lottery numbers , this was probably the 15th time I'd said the same thing since we arrived!! Back to the Hobby, this bird was on a mission, through the bins could clearly see it homing in on a Swallow, closer and closer, surely the Swallow would notice ,but no too late, bang the Hobby hit hard, next to me I heard Margie shout oh! She seen it too!! Like an amateur I was marvelling at the action, rather that getting pictures and by the time I got the camera on it ,the bird was powering off left with it is prize, sad for the Swallow, but Hobbies gotta eat and that's nature! One minute your happily flying around the sky catching flies next your being ripped apart by a Hobby, life is short!!

Small part of the Swift flock, unfortunately the big lens does not capture this to well

Hobby with it's dinner

So another good couple of hours on Patch, I am looking forward to seeing what Autumn migration brings through in the next couple of months.