New location for Purple hairstreak

30 Tuesday Jul 2024

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British butterflies, butterfly, butterfly on Oak, hairstreak butterflies, Heath Park, Oak, Purple hairstreak

Since I discovered a Purple hairstreak, a couple of years ago, at Cosmeston Lakes Country Park, where they’d never been recorded before, I’ve been convinced that these gorgeous little butterflies are more common than most people realise. It’s just that, because they’re very small and spend most of their time high up in the tops of Oak trees, nobody notices them. So, being an habitual leaf-starer anyway, I now spend 10-15 minutes at this time of year staring at Oak trees, just in case. Last week, my leaf-staring paid off once again, when I was exploring Cardiff’s Heath Park. There are lots of large old Oaks in the park so it seemed a likely location, despite there being no recorded sightings. And this was my reward – even better than I expected, as it fluttered down from the top of the tree to a lower branch and posed nicely while I got some photos.

240730 purple hairstreak

H is for hairstreaks

13 Wednesday Dec 2023

Posted by sconzani in insects

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British butterflies, butterfly, Green hairstreak, hairstreak, hairstreak butterflies, Purple hairstreak

H is for hairstreaks, purple and green. For me, 2023 was a particularly good year for Purple hairstreaks. On 21 July, in Purple sheen, I blogged about those I had already seen at Lavernock Nature Reserve and at Casehill Woods, but I was lucky to see them in three more locations, at Ystrad Mynach on 25 July, in Dingle Park on 27 July, and finally one at Cosmeston on 1 August. The photos below are from my Ystrad Mynach encounter, where I almost stood on a Purple hairstreak that had been blown on to the pavement in front of me from its large Oak tree across the narrow busy road, probably by the many passing high-sided trucks. After taking a few photographs, I took the tiny creature back across the road and placed it as near to its tree as I could reach.

231213 purple hairstreak

There are no local places to see Green hairstreaks so I was particularly delighted in June to see my first in four years (A streak of green), at Charlton Kings Common just outside Cheltenham.

231213 green hairstreak

I also enjoyed a lovely encounter with a White-letter hairstreak this year but thought I’d highlight in this blog the Purple (for those special in-the-hand moments) and the Green (for the first sighting in so long).

Purple sheen

21 Friday Jul 2023

Posted by sconzani in insects, trees

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British butterflies, butterflies in oak trees, butterfly, Purple hairstreak

First I saw one distantly in the Oak trees opposite Lavernock Nature Reserve, and I was glad.

230721 purple hairstreak (1)

Then I saw one very close in the Oak trees at Casehill Woodland (as it flitted right on to the leaves in front of me), and I was overjoyed.

230721 purple hairstreak (2)

They’re Purple hairstreaks, of course, and they are beautiful, and I was very lucky.

230721 purple hairstreak (3)

H is for hairstreak

13 Monday Dec 2021

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British butterflies, butterfly, hairstreak butterflies, hairstreaks, Purple hairstreak, White-letter hairstreak

Another day, another letter, more butterflies but this has been a great year for hairstreak butterflies. The first highlight was finding my first ever Purple hairstreak larva at the end of May. I spotted it on two subsequent visits before it disappeared, hopefully to pupate.

211213 purple hairstreak larva

I only saw one Purple hairstreak butterfly in that woodland – in a different area so probably not the metamorphosed larva – but did see the butterflies at two other local sites.

211213 purple hairstreak

And, though I was delighted with my Purple hairstreak sightings this year, I was even more thrilled by the many White-letter hairstreaks I saw. This comes partly from learning to recognise and remember where the Wych elms grow in my local area but also partly from luck – my best sighting of the year, my white-letter day, was simply a case of being in the right place at the right time.

211213 white-letter hairstreak

Purple poser

19 Monday Jul 2021

Posted by sconzani in insects

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British butterflies, Butterflies of Oak woodlands, butterfly, butterflying, hairstreaks, Purple hairstreak

You may remember that at the end of May I made the surprise discovery of a Purple hairstreak butterfly larva in my local woodlands. Despite much searching I never found another but, as these butterflies are now on the wing, I’ve been keeping an eye out for any adults when I walk the woodland rides in that area.

210719 purple hairstreak (1)

And last week I found one … or, I should really say, it found me. I was focused on checking for butterflies flying high in the canopy of the Oak trees when a small grey-looking butterfly flitted close around my head and then disappeared into the branches next to the path. A few seconds later it reappeared and spent a few minutes, feeding on the honeydew on the leaves, before floating back up to the canopy again. A fanciful thought but it was almost like it was saying ‘Here I am. Look at me’, so I did.

210719 purple hairstreak (2)

Though these butterflies give a predominantly grey impression when you see them, they are named for the deep purple markings on their upper wings. You can catch just a glimpse of that vibrant colour in the photo above.

Oak: Purple hairstreak larva

26 Wednesday May 2021

Posted by sconzani in insects, trees

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British butterflies, butterfly larva on Oak tree, butterfly larvae, Purple hairstreak, Purple hairstreak larva

While examining the galls on Oak leaves that I blogged about yesterday, I also made a very exciting find, my first Purple hairstreak butterfly larva. It was so well camouflaged that I’m sure I wouldn’t normally have noticed it.

210526 purple hairstreak larva

This particular woodland contains some huge ancient Oak trees but also many younger trees planted to mark the turn of the millennium and I’ve always thought it would be good habitat for Purple hairstreak. Now that I know they’re definitely here, I’ll be looking for the stunning little butterflies when they emerge in a month or so, and also for more larvae in the meantime.

200/366 Purple hairstreak

18 Saturday Jul 2020

Posted by sconzani in insects, nature, trees

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British butterflies, butterfly, butterfly in Oak trees, Cosmeston Lakes Country Park, Favonius quercus, Oak butterfly, oak tree, Purple hairstreak

The key to where to locate this gorgeous butterfly, the Purple hairstreak, is in its scientific name Favonius quercus – quercus is the genus of the Oak tree – and I suspect that there are many more colonies of Purple hairstreaks living in our old Oak trees than we currently know about, as these butterflies spend much of their time unseen, high in the leafy boughs, feasting on honey dew.

200718 purple hairstreak (2)

There is a colony at Lavernock, and I’ve seen these butterflies at a couple of locations along the road that leads to Lavernock Point, but they were the only local sites I knew about. So, you can perhaps imagine my delight when, during Thursday’s walk at Cosmeston Lakes Country Park, I came face to snout with a female Purple hairstreak, which had ventured down to head height, and was happily running her yellow proboscis over the honey-dew-covered leaves.

200718 purple hairstreak (1)

This was the closest I’d been to one of these lovely creatures and had previously seen neither the purple sheen on their open wings nor the yellow proboscis. I was in butterfly heaven!

200718 purple hairstreak (3)

207/365 Butterflying at Lower Woods

26 Friday Jul 2019

Posted by sconzani in 365DaysWildin2019, insects, nature

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Brimstone, British butterflies, butterflying, Gatekeeper, Gloucestershire woodland, Lower Woods Nature Reserve, Purple hairstreak, Silver-washed fritillary, Small copper, woodland trenches

On the hottest July day on record, yesterday, three mad gents and a Kiwi woman went butterflying in the noon day sun!

190726 Lower Woods (1)

Our destination was the Gloucestershire Wildlife Trust’s Lower Woods Nature Reserve, which, according to their website, is ‘one of the largest ancient woodlands in the south-west of England’. I can believe it!

190726 Lower Woods (2)

We walked most of the Horton Great Trench, one of the long grassy roads that have been in existence since Medieval times, as well as detouring in through the woods on one of the many tracks, and it was beautiful – extremely hot, but beautiful! Towering old trees edged the ancient trackway, with clearings widening out to wildflower meadows in many places along the way.

190726 silver-washed frit

The trench was perfect for butterflies. I have never seen so many Silver-washed fritillaries before, and there was also an abundance of Peacocks, flashing their brilliant colours on the bramble flowers. We spotted several Purple hairstreaks up high in the ancient oaks and then had the delight of watching one come down to the grass to drink from the overnight dew – fabulous!

190726 purple hairstreak 190726 small copper

Our list for the site came to 17 species: Silver-washed fritillary, Purple hairstreak, Peacock, Red admiral, Comma, Large and Small and Marbled whites, Brimstone, Small skipper, Common blue and Brown argus, Speckled wood, Meadow brown, Ringlet and Gatekeeper, and two gorgeous Small coppers.

190726 gatekeeper 190726 brimstone

We didn’t actually find our target species, the White admiral, at Lower Woods but a detour to Slade Wood on the way home produced one individual, bringing our top-spotter car-driver his 50th butterfly species of the year. Congratulations, Gareth!

193/365 Hairstreaks

12 Friday Jul 2019

Posted by sconzani in 365DaysWildin2019, insects, nature

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#365DaysWild, British butterflies, butterfly, hairstreaks, Purple hairstreak, record shots only, White-letter hairstreak

Record shots only! Have you heard that term? Well, these photos are extremely good examples of what it means – really lousy photos, sometimes taken at long distance and then heavily cropped, often blurry, possibly adjusted in Photoshop or similar image processing software to try to enhance the features, but really only retained as proof that you did actually see what you say you saw. (So you can actually see what lovely butterflies these are, I’ve linked their names to the relevant pages on the Butterfly Conservation website.)

190712 white-letter hairstreak

Luckily, with this shot of a White-letter hairstreak, I was with another person, who actually showed me the location, so I have a witness to the sighting. From my ‘record shot’ you probably can’t even tell that the small blob in the sky is a butterfly flitting around in the top canopy of this Wych elm.

190712 purple hairstreak (1)

I did a little better with the Purple hairstreak. Again, this is a known location, where other people have seen and photographed these lovely little butterflies in recent days. The first time I visited, all I could see were small flutterings at the very top of the tall old oak trees where the Purple hairstreaks live. Luckily, on my second visit, some of the butterflies were moving around further down the tree. I just needed to be patient and wait for one to fly, then try to follow where it went – believe me, that’s not easy as they almost seem to disappear amongst the leaves and they really are quite small (a wing span of 37-39mm).

190712 purple hairstreak (2)

A tale of two Hairstreaks

23 Monday Jul 2018

Posted by sconzani in insects, nature, trees

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British butterflies, butterflies, butterflies in elm trees, butterflies in oak trees, Favonius quercus, Purple hairstreak, Satyrium w-album, White-letter hairstreak

First off, let me just say I have not started blogging about hairstyling: the Hairstreaks are a group of butterflies, so named because of the thin streak of white across their underwings, that usually live their whole lives in the upper canopies of various trees. This year, due to the extremely hot dry weather, their tree-top food sources have dried up, forcing them to come down to ground level for sustenance.

180723 white-letter hairstreak

I spotted this lovely little butterfly purely by chance. I was wandering along the Glamorgan Canal in Forest Farm Nature Reserve, north of Cardiff, taking photos of the Demoiselle damselflies, when something small and brown fluttered down to water level, settled briefly on a leaf, then was chased off by one of the Demoiselles (hence the poor images). The White-letter hairstreak (Satyrium w-album) can usually be found in the tops of Elm trees and suffered a severe decline in numbers due to Dutch Elm disease killing off so many Elm trees in the 1970s but it seems slowly to be recovering. Its name comes from the shape of the letter W on its lower underwing.

180723 purple hairstreak

I can’t take the credit for spotting this Purple hairstreak (Favonius quercus) – my friend Jill noticed it sitting on the woodland trail as we explored Abbot’s Wood in East Sussex last week. (This was my third new butterfly of the week!) Purple hairstreaks usually live in the tops of Oak trees, mostly in southern areas of Britain. Unfortunately, I only managed a couple of quick photos and didn’t get to see its purple-coloured upper wings.