Another Gatekeeper
About 10 days ago I blipped a Gatekeeper butterfly - the first one I had seen this season. Since then I've seen them everywhere I've been: there seems to be a real explosion of them. I'm unashamedly blipping one again, this time showing its underwing.
Today I've been by the River Rother again, this time to the site of the old Orgreave colliery and coking plant, sadly most famous for the "Battle of Orgreave" in 1984 when picketing miners clashed with police. Today the site is being redeveloped. At present, large areas are being landscaped and planted up with young trees and there are a couple of lakes and lots of recently laid footpaths. The lakes in particular attract large numbers of birds. I saw oystercatchers, cormorants, great crested grebe, skylarks and lesser black-backed gulls (not yet blipped, but to far away for even a ropey photo) to name a few. The plans are in place to deveop the site as a sustainable high density mixed use community. Obviously the birding community are concerned that this may result in the disturbance at best and destruction at worst of a site which is showing so much potential as a magnet for birds.
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