Brown Hairstreaks

 

Out walking on the Downs recently, there were still a lot of butterflies on the wing but most were starting to look a bit worn. There will still be fresh looking Red Admirals, Peacocks and Brimstones around for a few months yet and possibly even a Short-tailed Blue but the end of the butterflying season is usually marked by the emergence of the Brown Hairstreaks. When most other species are past their best the flash of bright orange stands out amongst the drab browns - that is, if you manage to find one.

Fortunately we have a couple of good sites close by and this year we headed over to Steyning Rifle Range in search of the target. Target butterfly that is, no shots have been fired here since the 1980s.

I would like to say what a wonderful day we had but Brown Hairstreaks always seem like hard work. We arrived early and spent two to three hours searching for that flash of orange. A complete waste of time. Males tend to stay on territory in the tops of the Ash trees, whilst the females coming down to the Blackthorn to lay eggs don't usually appear until after 11am. If you are really lucky you may find one sunbathing or nectaring on Brambles or Fleabane after egg laying.

We did eventually get to see a couple and it was worth the wait but only just.

It has been an unusual butterflying year. We had a shortage of the blue species early in the year. It did improve a bit late summer but they were still not in the numbers I would expect, yet walking on the downs now there seems to be good numbers of second broods.

Plants also seem to be out of sync with the butterflies. We usually visit Houghton Forest in August to photograph Silver-spotted Skippers and White Admirals on the Hemp Agrimony. Not only is it a great nectaring plant but it is four or five feet tall so you don't have to go crawling about on your hands an knees to get your shots. This year it flowered late, it looks good now but the shots are not really what I was looking for.

Hemp Agrimony looking good but I can't say the same for the Silver-washed Fritillary

Or for the White Admiral

Fortunately the Small Tortoiseshells are still looking good.

Small Tortoiseshell

The Buddleia in my garden at home also seems to be having a bad year. It flowered at about the right time  but it doesn't seem to be attracting the butterflies this year. Perhaps nectar levels are linked to temperature and moisture levels.

A late push has eventually raised my butterfly list for the year to more respectable levels. There are forty seven butterflies that can be seen in Sussex in a good year. I missed out on the Purple Emperor and Purple Hairstreak and the jury is still out on the Long-tailed Blue which could be flying through to the end of October. Still forty four is not a bad count and if the Large Tortoiseshell becomes established in Sussex I could be looking for forty eight next year.

Below are some of the late additions to the list.

Brimstone

Brown Argus

Clouded Yellow - it's a bit tatty but they all count

Common Blue

Silver-spotted Skipper

Small Copper

Speckled Wood

Wall

It doesn't seem possible that the summer is all but over. Did it ever really happen this year or is it just that I was isolating through the best part of it. 

It will still be worth looking for moths for a couple more months and we could get a warm September which will keep the insects active but the focus will now start to turn back to the birds. Which is only appropriate for what claims to be a birding blog. Bring on those winter days stood on the North Wall at Pagham waiting for that once in a lifetime find to turn up.

Pearl-bordered Fritillary

An hour at Mill Hill NR on the 25th had got the butterfly list off to a good start with ten species recorded in just over an hour. I didn't manage to photograph them all but at least I got plenty of exercise chasing the Brimstones and Orange tips on the steep slopes.

Best finds of the day, Small Copper and Green Hairstreak. Unexpected were a couple of Wall which I had not recorded at this site before. More worrying was the lack of Grizzled Skippers, usually guaranteed at Mill Hill. Perhaps it was just too cold for them.

Dingy Skipper

Green Hairstreak

Speckled Wood

Wall

We followed this up with our annual pilgrimage to Rewell Wood to see the Pearl-bordered Fritillary. Somehow this always feels like the start of the butterflying season.

Pearl-bordered Fritillary

Underwing view of the Pearl-bordered Fritillary

Pearl-bordered Fritillary

Pearl-bordered Fritillary

We also had a supporting cast of Grizzled Skipper, a butterfly I had missed at Mill Hill, and a good number of Orange-tips. Picture below is of a female, I don't think I saw a male stationary all day.

Grizzled Skipper

Female Orange-tip

Underside of the female Orange-tip

Although Duke of Burgundy have been reported from some locations I haven't seen any on the local patch. Heyshott Down always seems to be a week in front of other sites. No Blues seen yet either.

Brown Argus

It will be interesting to see what this years Big Butterfly Count comes up with. My own experience is that the butterflies are there, but they are in much lower numbers than I have seen before. Some, such as Tortoiseshells and Commas, have been few and far between this year.

Two weeks ago I was walking through meadows and on chalk hillsides covered in wild flowers and I was having difficulty finding any butterflies. Then in the past week or so, things have started to improve. We had a good emergence of Chalkhill Blues, then, in the last few days, Brimstone, Peacock, Painted Lady, and Red Admirals all in good condition and in good numbers.

One walk along a ride in Houghton Forest really raised my spirits. There were hundreds of these freshly emerged butterflies and even a good number of slightly worn Silver-washed Fritillaries. It was just like old times again.

With this years butterfly season drawing to a close I am just keeping my fingers crossed for a recovery in numbers next year.

Brown Argus - Newtimber Hill

A quick trip back to Newtimber Hill gave me a few good finds. This Brown Argus took a bit of chasing but I eventually got the pictures I wanted.

Brown Argus - Newtimber Hill

It is always easier to get the pictures when the butterflies are otherwise engaged and this pair of mating Silver-spotted Skippers was no exception.

Mating Pair Silver-spotted Skippers - Newtimber Hill

Another unusual sight was this pair of Painted Ladies. I have only ever seen them as singletons before. I assume they are male and female. They were sticking very close together but I did not get any action shots. I also noticed that the top one has an extra white spot in the wing tip. Possibly an aberration.

Painted Ladies  - Newtimber Hill

Peacock   -  nice but it looked much more vivid in real life.

Wall - Newtimber Hill

Brimstone - Houghton Forest

Brimstone  -  Houghton Forest

Another great butterfly. A blue version of the normally brown female of the Common Blue butterfly. You might need to read that twice!

Common Blue Female

Common Blue Female

A walk around Tillets Fields gave us plenty of Purple Hairstreaks but as with my previous visit they stayed mostly in the tops of the trees. Fortunately one did drop out of the skies at our feet. It was a bit tatty but still worth recording.

Purple Hairstreak  - Tillets Fields

Dave also spotted a Brown Haistreak at Tillets but unfortunately it was gone by the time I got there.

Red Admiral  -  Houghton Forest

Red Admiral -  Houghton Forest

Speckled Wood  -  Madgeland Woods

Houghton Forest also had the largest number of Dragonflies that I have seen in one small location. I reckon around 40 in the area where we park the car although they weren't exactly lining up to be counted. They looked like Darters and Hawkers but none were landing to enable a definite identification. We also saw large numbers of Southern Hawkers at Madgeland Woods and these were a bit more obliging.

Southern Hawker

Southern Hawker

I am missing a few of my usual butterflies this year, White Admiral, Purple Emperor, Small Pearl-bordered Fritillary, White Hairstreak, plus all the northern species but overall it has been a good year. There is also still a chance of connecting with Brown Hairstreaks and Clouded Yellows before the month is out and maybe even a late Long-tailed Blue so I need to keep looking.

Grayling

Butterflying has one big advantage over birding, if you do your research and get your timing right the butterflies will be there. That doesn't always happen with the birds. I think our only real failure this year has been in searching for Small Pearl-bordered Fritillaries in Sussex where three trips to Park Corner Heath have left me without a result.

Monday saw us out again, this time at Windover Hill looking for Grayling. I didn't really know what to expect. I had never seen a Grayling before and their cryptic camouflage is supposed to make them difficult to find. That was the case when we first arrived on the hill. We found Marbled Whites, Wall, and Small Coppers, along with the usual suspects but no Grayling.

Rather tatty Wall on a cow pat 

This one in better condition but not giving open wing shots

Whilst searching for the Grayling we also found a few moths including a freshly emerged Oak Egger and a Yellow Pearl mecyna flavalis. The latter is a rarity in Sussex although it seems quiet common on Windover Hill where there is reported to be a colony of them.

Oak Egger - freshly emerges and still blowing up its wings

Oak Egger

Yellow Pearl mecyna flavalis

This was our first visit to Windover Hill. It looks to be a great site for butterflies but we were beginning to think that we had come a week too early. Fortunately Dave had wandered off in pursuit of a Small Copper and I was soon chasing after him when he found our first Grayling of the day. There was the usual scramble to make sure we both had a record shot but then when we looked around it was clear that there were a good number flying. We counted five in the air at the same time but that was just in the one small location. Over the side of the hill there must have been at least twenty.

Grayling showing cryptic camouflage

 The Grayling tended to land on bare earth and broken rock where the camouflage was very effective but this did not make for a good picture. In fact it proved very difficult to get any distance between the Grayling and its background. An out of focus plain green background would have shown the detail much more effectively but I guess you can't have everything - at least not this time.

The eye pops up as a defence response

They nearly always settle with the wings closed

Then just as we were starting to get a bit bored we came across a mating pair and a few more pictures were taken.

Mating pair

Tuesday and we were hoping to repeat our success by finding a Silver-spotted Skipper. This was another new location, Newtimber Hill, and for me another new butterfly. The search was a partial success. Dave found the skipper and managed to take a photograph. I did get to see it but just as I pressed the shutter button for my record shot it took off. It moved with surprising speed for a Skipper, we didn't see it go and we could not relocate it despite a couple of hours of looking. So if you want to see a picture of the Silver-spotted Skipper you will have to look at Dave's blog site.                                                                          

We had regular visits from a Small Copper whilst we were looking. This was showing blue spots on its rear wings and is of the form caeruleopunctata  or should it be referred to as an ab. caeruleopunctata?   The books do not seem to be clear on the difference between an aberration (ab) and a "form". At the moment I am taking it that they are both caused by the same triggers but an aberration is a variation that is a rarity whilst a form is a variation that is consistent and common.   If you are interested read more about it here.                                                                                                                    

                                                                     

Small Copper ab. caeruleopunctata

Small Copper

Peacock

We made a quick trip to Chantry Hill in the afternoon. There were a lot of Dark Green Fritillaries  on the track between the car park and the hill but most of these were in poor condition. There were also a good number of Marbled Whites and these looked surprisingly fresh.

It was a hot day and I was beginning to feel tired but then I spotted a pair of mating Dark Green Fritillaries. I only managed one quick shot before they took off and disappeared down the hill.

Mating Dark Green Fritillaries

There was clearly a good shot to be had here and I was quickly off in pursuit. I did manage to catch up once about half way down the hill but they were flying again almost as soon as I got to them. By the time I got to the bottom of the hill they had disappeared altogether. It was only then that it dawned on me that I had to climb all the way back up and it's a big hill. Butterflying can be hard work.