Hedge Brown ...

... or Gatekeeper, one of the few butterflies that still has competing names. In my view the flight period for Gatekeepers is all too short - only about six weeks compared with around 16 weeks for the Meadow Brown. I was delighted to count just shy of a hundred Gatekeepers on my thirty minute UKBMS transect this morning, easily outnumbering the Meadow Browns. Ringlets also seem to be doing well: I've already counted more Ringlets than in any year since 2017.