10th June Part 2 Wednesday 10th June was an unremarkable day until a short walk around my local patch in Crawley produced a surprise. After photographing a few species in the garden, I realised I had still not seen a Meadow Brown this year, so I set out before the rain arrived. Just after midday, I noticed a white butterfly fluttering weakly in a patch of common Bird’s-foot Trefoil. That caught my attention, as I had not seen a white butterfly locally since 25th May. It then flew up and landed at the edge of the patch, where it laid an egg on a non-flowering stem. To my amazement, it was a Wood White. It then settled on nearby vegetation, allowing me to take three photographs, one of which was in focus. Soon afterwards, it made a slow circuit of the area and disappeared from view. At the time the temperature was about 15C, with a light westerly breeze. After a careful search, I found the egg I had seen it lay, although I suspect there may be others nearby. This sighting is many miles outside of the core breeding areas for this species, like Chiddingfold in Surrey, although I understand that there are also some discrete Sussex colonies. I am told by people who know these things that Wood White is able to disperse over long distances and this may be one of those examples. If so, then I would ask people to be vigilant and alive to the possibility of one turning up in their area, either in the coming weeks or when the second brood is on the wing. For the moment the exact location of the sighting and the egg is being kept confidential, but it’s somewhere in south-west Crawley. I will be monitoring the egg, which has been left in-situ, and hopefully report any developments. And yes, I also saw a Meadow Brown…