Salisbury Plain and Martin Down

This morning I got up extremely early at 3.00 am in order to join Steve and Bun on a trip to Wiltshire. We visited a couple of sites on Salisbury Plain where we saw a few Stone Curlews, and lots of lovely Corn Buntings some of which were posing really nicely, begging to be digiscoped, but someone went and forgot her digiscoping camera! I believe Steve got some photos though . We also saw loads of tanks. It felt very strange birding with tanks on training maneuvers all around you!

Later in the morning we moved on to Martin Down hoping for a few butterfly ticks. The weather wasn't ideal though with a fair bit of cloud and a fresh northwesterly wind making it quite chilly. There were loads of orchids though and I got another tick with this:

Common (I think?) Fragrant Orchid.

Time was against us with me having to get home in time for work this evening so I wasn't able to have a good look around for any more orchid ticks today. I absolutely love Martin Down though and will certainly be going back soon. We did see a couple of nice butterflies which were both 'lifers' for me, and they were (in no particular order)...

Dark Green Fritillary

And..

Adonis Blue
(I couldn't believe just how vivid blue these were, the photos don't do the colour justice really)

This big hairy caterpillar was one to look up when I got home.

It's the caterpillar of the Oak Eggar Moth.