Old Soldier

This afternoon I stopped off at Springhead Hill near Storrington, primarily to see how the Small Blue is faring. Numbers are much better than last year and females are still emerging, with two mating pairs seen.

What did surprise me, particularly so late in the day, was this geriatric male Duke, still taking on anything that crossed its airspace. The same individual was photographed a week ago, already looking bleached and well past its sell-by date. I'm pretty sure this is the same male I first saw eleven days prior to that, making it at least 2.5 weeks old. Good effort!

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