A splash of orange

Thank you for so much love on my tree wasp yesterday.  Today's is not as dramatic, admittedly, but for me, even more exciting.

Spotting this in my usual wander up the road, I first wrote it off as a meadow brown.  A double take on its wing had me realising it was something different.  It was happy enough to have its photo taken and it was while I was looking through the lens that I spotted it tipping its wings to the sun like a solar panel in the same way the green hairstreak did when I first spotted one of those.  

Having never seen any other type of hairstreaks before, I plumped for a brown hairstreak (hmmm... brown!) while I was out but have since worked out its a white-letter hairstreak (because the brown hairstreak is orange!) 

The species had a massive decline during the bad patch of dutch elm disease and are elusive anyway, spending much of their time in the tree tops.  I remember the rapid spreading of dutch elm disease in my growing up years but never knew how these little guys had been impacted.  

I don't know my elms so I'm not even sure whether it's an elm that's close by but I'll be taking a better look now!

A splash of orange, I think, will be the extra colour required with the new bedroom decor.