white letter hairstreak

With white letter hairstreaks being regularly reported from Ravensroost Woods, I decided to pay a third visit to try and find one for myself. It had been a sunny morning with less wind than last time, so I was hopeful, although it had begun to turn more cloudy by the time I arrived.

I walked the short distance to an area where they have been seen and stood and waited, scanning the leaves for a small dark butterfly. There were plenty of meadow browns and ringlets, and a few whites and eventually I saw something small,  fly rapidly between branches and land   amongst some leaves several metres away from where I stood, was it  a white letter hairstreak?  It disappeared behind some leaves but as it emerged  I could see from the white letter 'W' that it was the butterfly I was waiting to see!

After a minute it flew off again and landed further back out of sight, and then several minutes later flew again and landed where I could make it out. . Just then I was joined by a photographer I have come across before and I  showed it to him. Another couple of visitors came up but the butterfly flew off and we were unable to relocate it; a pity as one of them had never seen that species before.

I was also looking for another hairstreak, the purple hairstreak but with it getting more cloudy and even a few spots of rain falling, I was unlikely to be successful, although the person I showed the white letter  hairstreak to had walked ahead and  managed to find one on the ground, which sadly had gone by the time I caught up with him!

Butterflies seen today included marbled white, small white, ringlet, meadow brown, small skipper, red admiral, silver washed fritillary, comma. 

white letter hairstreak

small skipper