A Grizzley Discovery

The glorious sunny weather lured me out to another new site today – Wrexham Industrial Estate.

Not the first place I would look for wildlife, but a chap had suggested a brown field site opposite the Calypso factory as a good spot to find Grizzled Skipper.

When I rocked-up numerous ‘No Trespassing’ signs surrounded the margins of the site, but a look at my OS map suggested a public footpath running through it, so I adopted the commendable Indian attitude to official notices – all are to be studiously and universally ignored and if you come a cropper then it’s nobody’s fault but you own.

Strangely, the dry rough grassland and scrub reminded me a lot of rural India, although the weather may have helped a little too.

Like Shotton NR it is a haven for warblers with Chiffchaff, Willow Warbler, Blackcap, Common & Lesser Whitethroat, Garden Warbler and Sedge Warbler all present and correct.

But it was butterflies I had come to find and it was equally rich in this respect too: Wall Brown, plenty of Common Blue, many ‘Whites’, shed loads of Small Heath, Small Copper, a couple of Dingy Skipper and finally after two hours…..a Grizzled Skipper!

All in all, another first class habitat right under my bonce. I do wonder if this area has been accorded any sort of protection because I would hate the concrete and tarmac to arrive…

On a less positive note, it looks as though the Common Tern colony at Shotton NR is about to - if it has not already - fail for a second successive year. I met Denzil down there yesterday and twelve birds was the highest number we recorded.

This is after three hundred birds being present early on in the week, but unfortunately as with last year they appear to have vanished.

Until later.