Streaky

Another trip up into the Cotswolds this morning, to the Butterfly Conservation reserve at Prestbury Hill, netted me just one of my target species for the day - though that was a clear improvement on last week's none. It didn't seem entirely fair recompense for a 50-minute drive in each direction, and 10,000 steps walked up and down the steep scree slopes, but we're only a few days into May, and though it was sunny there was a fierce wind blowing across Cleeve Common, so it wasn't a wholly surprising result. And the Cotswolds were looking glorious in their spring plumage, which was more than enough to put me in an upbeat mood as I zoomed around with the car top down.

Sadly today, unlike last week, I can't just say "Well, I'll simply have to go back to Prestbury Hill in a few days, when things are bound to be better, butterfly-wise," because according to both my weather forecasts the next ten days are going to be hateful, and no butterfly with any wit will be venturing so much as an antenna out of its roost. By next weekend I believe that it's actually forecast to be raining frogs, which will make fielding an energetic toddler.... interesting - but on the plus side, I won't be standing on a London street watching a chap in a £35 million hat riding along in a gold coach, so yay me.

This, in the unlikely event that you need me to spell it out, is a Green Hairstreak, which was the only one of the "small earlies" that was out and about on Cleeve Hill this morning. I found four - two on the Masts Reserve and two on the Bill Smyllie - but this was the only one that paused for photos. I say "paused", but it was actually clinging for dear life to this hawthorn shoot, as the wind whipped it back and forth, and by the time I'd finally nailed half a dozen shots, I'm not sure whether the hairstreak or I was closer to screaming. As soon as the wind dropped a little the butterfly took itself off down into the grass, where I rapidly lost it despite carefully walking all around the area. I did put up a largeish lizard, which might have made an interesting photo if I hadn't been so surprised that I just stood (mouth agape) and watched it scuttle from one grass tussock to another, without even remembering that I had a camera in my hand. Oh, and - I heard the first cuckoo of the year, along with a redstart, and several warblers including a whitethroat. Prestbury Hill is always nicely productive of birds.

Speaking, as I was, of treading carefully, I thought you might like an update on yesterday's birch sawfly (which my friend K said this morning made her think of an Arthurian black knight - a conceit I especially like because Cimbex is such an excellent name for a mediaeval knight). I went out after breakfast to check the peony in the rose bed, and found the sawfly in the process of clambering laboriously up from the depths of it, where he'd roosted overnight, onto the top of the plant. By the time I went off to Prestbury Hill the sun hadn't come round onto that section of the garden, but it was already quite warm, and he was walking around and looking alert. By the time I got back, five hours later, the whole garden was in full sun, and the sawfly had disappeared. I checked the nearby vegetation, and walked carefully around the top lawn, in search of something about the size of a crashed Lancaster bomber, but found nothing, and nor was there any sign that a bird had landed on the peony to predate him - so I'm cautiously hopeful that he managed to get airborne at some point this morning, and made it up into the trees. I wouldn't mind meeting him again, under less stressful circumstances than yesterday's, but honestly I hope that he's far too busy finding a mate and completing his life cycle to worry about revisiting old friends.