Mid break butterflying

We went butterflying with Jo at Denbies Hillside (near Dorking) yesterday.  It was a nice break from starting to sort out the house to get it ready to let out after Christmas.

Even though it wasn't a particularly sunny day it was fairly warm and there were plenty of butterflies on the wing.  The first we saw were our boat's namesake, Chalkhill Blues.  Here is a male...

...and this is a female.  Female blues tend to be brown with a dusting of blue scales where their wings meet their body, in the same shade as the male.

We also saw:

• Adonis Blue (first of the year - these were from the second brood - we had missed seeing any from the first brood earlier in the year)
• Common Blue
• Brown Argus
• Small Heath
• Meadow Brown
• Gatekeeper
• Speckled Wood
• Silver Spotted Skipper

The Adonis Blues and Silver Spotted Skippers are both very rare butterflies and it was the first time we've seen the skipper at this site.  We couldn't get a picture but looking through the ones we took of other species we found we had snapped one by accident!  Karen took this long shot of a Meadow Brown feeding on a thistle and to our surprise she had caught a Silver Spotted Skipper flying past.