Lincolnshire Brown Argus

I set off early to survey a couple of tetrads just west of Sleaford, hoping to complete them before the heavy showers arrived. My first tetrad included the urban area of Quarrington, which supported a surprisingly rich flora on road verges, open spaces and in the churchyard, and is the only place I've seen Field Mouse-ear, a species normally confined to high quality unimproved grassland, growing abundantly on the parched edges of mown grass verges.

I then headed a little way to the north and walked a loop of footpaths through agricultural land - some very boring, but with greater interest than I'd anticipated. The boundary of a bean field had very large populations of a number of rare and declining arable weeds, including Stinking Chamomile, Dwarf Spurge, Round-leaved Fluellen and Sharp-leaved Fluellen. The latter two have the sweetest little purple and yellow flowers, like miniature snapdragons. Nearby there was a patch of recently established grassland with this solitary Brown Argus feeding on the Hoary Ragwort. I'm used to seeing this species on brownfield land in Cambridgeshire, where it can be very abundant, but it seems to be decidedly local in Lincolnshire, with only one other published record near Sleaford.

I had to shelter under some trees while a shower passed, but luckily it wasn't too heavy or too prolonged. By the middle of the afternoon the sky had become more menacing, so I decided to give up and return home before I got a real drenching - which proved to be a wise move!