Thursday 7 July 2022

Hull Railway triangles: Jack Kaye Fields

 

In the morning, I go to work via Jack Kaye and walk around the field. This is a playing field with areas of woodland and scrub, with large trees lining the adjacent railway land. It has survived development partly because of the difficulty of access. It has houses on two sides, a cycle lane, Jack Kaye Lane, and the railway line on the south side. The western area has long grass and scrub, while on the eastern area there are two glades in the woodland. It is cloudy and the only thing of note is that I find a skipper roosting on a Creeping Thistle flower. It is on the photo above, can you find it? Now that I've had Essex Skipper at Hull I feel I need to check every skipper, something I only did occasionally before. I check it, and it is indeed, a Small Skipper, it's brown antennae undersides very clear in the photo. 

I walk the same way back home after work. It is warm and sunny, so I stop to do a butterfly count at the field

Ringlets are plentiful but starting to look battered and faded.

Two Commas patrol and sit in prominent perches around glades.

Meadow Brown. There are a few Meadow Browns about too.

And of course plenty of Small Skippers, at least, all the ones I check.

There were some very fresh Large Whites.

A Small Butterfly settled on an oak leaf, a Purple Hairstreak? I lost it. There were Speckled Woods about so maybe just wishful thinking.

A Chiffchaff fledgling at Jack Kaye fields was a nice finding, it even posed for a little bit when I whistled its song. There have been two singing Chiffchaffs in the area so it is nice they have already fledged their young.

Must brush up my grasshopper ID. Probably a male Lesser Marsh Grasshopper.

Chiffchaff Habitat.

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