What a day!

I live almost on the edge of the main area in the UK for the Black Hairstreak, one of our rarest and most secretive butterflies. It seems to be having a good year and there are signs of unprecedented range expansion. Like many other members of the Upper Thames branch of Butterfly Conservation I've been helping to survey it over the last couple of weeks, but in my case it has been mostly negative results when looking at sites which might be colonised. This changed today when I explored a site which I have thought for some years might be suitable but is quite a few miles east of its recent range. I found these beautiful butterflies within a few minutes of arriving, flitting around large spreading blackthorn bushes and feeding from honeydew on the leaves of neighbouring oak and ash trees. One sapling oak seemed to be especially attractive and at one point there were three Black Hairstreaks on a branch at chest height - I couldn't believe my luck!