White-letter Hairstreaks

The heat wave continues and it hasn't rained now for weeks and it is hot and sticky and quite frankly unpleasant at times. However insect life seems to have responded somewhat with noticeably more butterflies around and some decent moth trap hauls being reported on the Internet but we really could to with some rain.

Local butterflyer Dave emailed news that the White-letter Hairstreaks had emerged at Oreston and so I headed out for a look on Thursday 15th June. I arrived on site at around 08:45hrs and it was already feeling very hot in the sunshine but I quickly found a White-letter Hairstreak flitting about in the treetop. Over the next hour I watched up to 4 White-letter Hairstreaks dashing about engaged in aerial skirmishes or resting briefly on the leaves with their wings angled to capture the heat of the sun but they never came very close and never settled for very long.

White-letter Hairstreak

White-letter Hairstreak

White-letter Hairstreak

White-letter Hairstreak

A surprise was a flyover Marbled White, my first of the year, and an immature Common Darter showed nicely too. 2 Speckled Wood were also seen and they regularly disturbed the resting Hairstreaks as they passed them by.

Common Darter

I headed off to check out the Elm tree by The Range for White-letter Hairstreaks but with no luck although a male Orange Tip was noted and I enjoyed the flowering Bee Orchids and Pyramidal Orchards by the footpath along the way.

Bee Orchids

Pyramidal Orchid

Pyramidal Orchid

I decided to have a quick look at The Plym before heading home despite it being a low tide and out on the mudflats were 2 Oystercatcher, a Curlew, 2 Little Egrets and 2 Grey Herons along with Canada Geese, Cormorants, Shelducks and the usual Gulls (Herring, Black-headed and Great Black-backed).

There were lots of butterflies flitting around with good numbers of Meadow Brown and Marbled White noted. A Red Admiral, a Holly Blue, 2 Small Skippers and a Large Skipper were also seen.

Small Skipper

Large Skipper

That night I finally put the moth box out in the back yard for the first time this year and the next morning had a decentish haul of moths, nothing unusual but nice to see and I wasn't too rusty on the ID'S either.

Riband Wave - an oddly coloured specimen

We had a short walk at Saltram later that morning on Friday 16th June, it was hot and sunny and again the tide was low but 2 Oystercatcher, a Grey Wagtail, singing Chiffchaff and Blackcap, 9 Mandarin Duck and the pair of Mute Swans with 2 cygnets were all seen. An Emperor Dragonfly was buzzing around over the duck pond this time and Meadow Browns were flitting about everywhere in the heat but we were very glad to return home and into the coolness of the house.