White-letter hairstreak

Thank you all so much for your kind wishes for my Mum, I am pleased to say she is a lot better today, and could possibly be home from hospital tomorrow, which is really great news!
Half day today, and I had a lovely afternoon visiting a site in Brighton famed for it's colony of White-letter hairstreak butterflies.
The White-letter hairstreak Satyrium w-album, is a small butterfly,from the illusive hairstreak family of butterflies. Like other hairstreaks it tends to fly around the tops of trees coming down very occasionally to nectar on flowers. It's sole foodplant is Elm, and populations (especially in the south) suffered terribly when many of our beautiful elm trees succumbed to dutch elm disease in the 70's and 80's. This was made worse by the fact that this butterfly forms discrete colonies which are sometimes very small containing only a few dozen individuals, typically focused on a small clump of trees, the loss of which could be fatal for the colony. 
Although the butterfly has Red data book status, this particular colony in Brighton is doing well, and atypically the butterflies seem to enjoy popping down to ground level to nectar - which is great for me!
The butterfly takes it's name from the series of white lines on the hind underwing that resemble the letter 'W'. The males (this is a male) have short 'tails' in the hindwings, and the females have slightly longer tails, but these seem to get easily damaged , possibly by the thistles.