Alderney 11 – 14 July continued

Still at Houmet Herbé, I was delighted to find several Foresters, a day flying moth in the same family as Burnet and Cinnabar. It’s interesting to note in my field guide that they are frequent and increasing on Alderney since 2003. Otherwise they are local in the Channel Islands and it has been probably four years since I have seen one in Guernsey.

On a second visit to the site I found at lest two Brown Argus butterflies. They can be hard to distinguish from female Common Blue. The main difference when looking at the open wings is the absence of blue scales on the Brown Argus and the orange markings, properly called lunules (as I’ve just discovered) extend to the edge of the wing. When the wings are closed, the Brown Argus has a figure of eight marking, but I did not get a view of the underside. It is good to know that they are found at several locations in Guernsey and have become more established in the past few years.

There is an old Victorian fort on a tidal islet about two hundred metres out to sea which has quite a few pairs of breeding Common Tern. There was a very handy seat under some pine trees where I was able to relax and enjoy their harsh cries and see them bring fish back to the nest. I relaxed a bit too much and forgot to pick up my glasses. Luckily, they were still on the seat when we went back to search for them in the evening. The coast of France is just visible in the photo.

Another walk along the south-east coast gave us good views of another butterfly: Glanville Fritillary, one of two, sunning itself on the path out of the wind. I was hoping for a Fritillary species that we don’t get in Guernsey, but I hadn’t managed to see any of the Glanvilles at home, so it was good to catch up with them here.

Alderney has some amazing natural habitats where disturbance is minimal. We were astonished at the number of butterflies across the island, particularly along the hedgerows which seemed awash with Meadow Brown and Gatekeeper. Also there is an amazing variety of flowers along the coast and inland. It was like nature up close, and being such a small island, nowhere is very far. The four days passed very quickly and Thursday morning arrived when it was time to pack up and head off to Burhou for three days with the other bird ringers. More to follow…