No sign of Hairstreaks, but plenty of butterflies in my garden.

 Thursday 2nd July 2026.

This Buff-tailed Bumblebee was enjoying this Hibiscus flower.

There was no Moth Box to check this morning as I fancied a lay in this morning. Nevertheless, I was up early again to do a few chores before walking the dogs. This morning, I was at Pembroke Road earlier than expected and so took a walk to see if the White-letter Hairstreak butterflies were still present.

The weather wasn't too bad today either and though it was cool at first thing this morning, but in the afternoon, it heated up to around 25 degrees centigrade. A light south-westerly breeze ran down the road, which made it a bit more comfortable.

I read with dismay that the BBC are going to stop Winter Watch and with AutumnWatch finished, how long will it be before Spring Watch goes too? I can understand that it must cost an awful lot of money for two or three weeks worth of programmes to be done, but how many fresh new Wildlife programmes do we have on our terrestrial television? I, along with probably thousands if not millions of disgruntled viewers will be sad to see this brilliant programme disappear from our screens. I have read that Chris Packham gets a lot of bad press, but the man is sticking up for our UK Wildlife along with many others and most certainly doesn't deserve the bad press he receives, especially from the miserable Keyboard Warriors, large Estate owners and Gamekeepers. Carry on the fight Chris.

Pembroke Road, Old Portsmouth:

Curtain Moat in the sunshine early this morning.

A good total of 14 bird species were recorded this morning and although there was nothing really outstanding among the sightings, it is still good to see a nice variety here. The Wren was making sorties to its nest site close to where I stand and overhead, a good total of 8 Swifts were hawking the sky.

View from the Curtain Moat looking north.

I took a trip to see if the Hairstreak butterflies were still present before my first shift, but all I could find within the Lime Tree where they were the last time, were good numbers of Bumblebees nectaring on the flower heads of the Lime Tree. Disappointed, I decided to take a slow stroll over to Curtain Moat. A Blackbird was seen perched on the Bowling Green wire fence and a Blue Tit was heard calling up in the trees. Sadly, I passed someone sleeping rough in a small tent within the Trees and Bushes there, which makes you think how sad his life had come to this.

Above, Field Bindweed and below, Wild Carrot, all growing around Curtain Moat.

Though there were not many different birds around, it was the wildflowers that got my attention as I found several interesting plants including Common Ragwort, Wild Carrot and Field Bindweed along with clumps of Mallow growing all over the place.

My Garden:

Sitting in my back garden after picking our Isabelle up from the SeaCat at the Hard from her School trip to the Isle of Wight (a Peregrine was sitting quietly high up on the Spinnaker Tower), a few butterflies were on the wing here and at least two Small White’s, a Red Admiral, Holly Blue and even a Common Blue flew over! A female Hairy-footed Flower Bee took a big liking to the flowering Lavender in my garden and kept coming back to the same plant over the next hour.