Purple

After several failed summers of scanning the tops of oak trees for Purple Hairstreaks my persistence was finally rewarded today.

I'd been planning on spending the afternoon working my way along Baildon Bank to Shipley Glen and possibly dropping down to Trench Meadows before getting back home to watch the World Cup final. As it happened, the Bank kept me busy enough.

My first glimpse of a Purple Hairstreak was fleeting, but I was able to follow it's flight path to a small oak tree. Climbing up the slope of the Bank a bit I got a good eye level view of the canopy and sat and waited for a few minutes to see if another would emerge. Luckily, this one arrived and proceeded to happily nectar on these developing acorns a few inches away from me. It was there a good twenty minutes.

All told, I saw fifteen species of butterflies during the afternoon, with Gatekeeper the most numerous and good numbers of Small Copper and Small Heath being other highlights. 

Butterfly Journal 2018


30  15/07/2018  Purple Hairstreak, Baildon Bank