It’s that time of year when I check every Small skipper in case it’s an Essex. None I saw on this particular morning at Cosmeston were Essex skippers but I did spot a couple of egg-laying females and so, very carefully, I took the opportunity to see my first Small skipper eggs within a sheath of grass.

In his book Life Cycles of British & Irish Butterflies, Peter Eeles perfectly describes the female’s egg-laying process:

After buzzing around tall grasses, she will alight on a stem and then slowly revolve backwards down it, probing the sheath with her abdomen as she goes. When a suitable opening has been found, she closes her wings over her back, points her antennae forward, and spend a couple of minutes laying between three and eight eggs in a row inside the sheath.

The miniscule larvae hatch from their eggs after about three weeks, and, remaining inside the grass sheath, they spin a cocoon around themselves. This is how they spend the winter, in hibernation until April, when they emerge and continue through five larval stages before they pupate.

Sadly, this aspect of their life cycle leaves the tiny Small skipper caterpillars vulnerable. At my local country park, there used to be a thriving colony of Small skippers but, since the introduction of ‘conservation’ grazing, that colony has been lost because the cattle used for the grazing eat all the grass right down to the roots.