Friday 31 July 2015

Purple Hairstreak - New Butterfly Species for Me!

Today the need to publicise vacancies on my autumn course took me in the early morning sunshine to Beverley Westwood.  My nephew brought a 'blue' butterfly to my attention.  I was virtually speechless to see my first ever Purple Hairstreak butterfly.  It was just over eye level on a Hawthorn bush.  I managed a few quick pictures on my phone, before dashing back to my car the quarter of a mile for my telephoto lens.  Ben stood guard on the butterfly, and of course it stayed there the whole time, but flew off just as I arrived back.  Luckily, we saw it fly into a nearby oak tree.   Unfortunately, it was a lot higher up, but it remained in the same area for at least 30 minutes.  There was at least another one a few branches away, and there may even have been a third.  It was very unpleasant attempting to take photos as the whole period we were bombarded with something like "sweat flies", which would not leave us in peace.  If I return I intend to  take an anti-insect spray, and a hat - if only I had one of those anti-mosquito hats!  However, it was a great sighting, as this is a species that I've always wanted to see, but they spend a lot of time high in the canopy of trees.  This must be the only day this week that they were visible in these trees because the weather has been completely unsuitable every other day!
Purple Hairstreak - taken on a mobile
Ditto
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 Ditto
 Bloody Cranesbill
 Hoverfly Species
 Betony [ID Jan Davie]
 Yorkshire Broomrape
 Rosebay Willowherb

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

Hiya, I've never seen a purple hairstreak, great pictures. Your unidentified flower is Betony. Proper name Stachys officinalis. I've sometimes heard it called wood betony, I just know it as betony, but you might find it under either name.
Jan.