Butterflies with a flight period in June have already begun to emerge so with the current warm spell due to come to an end tomorrow, I wanted to make the most of today's afternoon sunshine. Large blues have already been seen at Daneway Banks, and silver studded blues and dark green fritillaries are also on the wing, but I decided that I would go for black hairstreaks today. My usual spot for finding these butterflies is at Whitecross green wood, but with the reserve closed at present, I needed to find an alternative. In fact there are several places close by that have black hairstreaks so I opted for the closest, which was at Bernwood Meadows, north east of Oxford. I had read that the car park was closed and was prepared to park half a mile down the road in a woodland carpark, but as I drove past there was nothing indicating closure, and one other car was already parked there so I drove in too, Mind you the car park is tiny, with only room for 3 cars!
I walked through the meadows,,checking the blackthorn hedges for any black hairstreak activity. Being unsuccessful I decided to ask a couple of people who were taking a keen interest in the long grasses. They said they were looking for butterflies and on explaining I was looking for black hairstreaks, was directed towards the gate into the adjoining woodland. There were blackthorn bushes either side of the gate and I soon spotted a few butterflies flitting amongst the vegetation. I had to wait a while before any of them settled, wings closed as is usual in the hairstreak family, to confirm they were in fact black hairstreaks. I think that these butterflies are one of the smartest looking of the hairstreaks, their brown contrasting well with the orange edges to their hindwings. Very few of them stopped, the sunshine had obviously invigorated them, and when they did it always seemed to be in the darkest areas of the bushes! I did find a pair mating, and eventually managed a few photographs of individuals. Altogether I did see about a dozen I think, so not a bad total in a short time. Sadly I did not have sufficient time to explore the meadows further, but on the way back my car, a dragonfly whizzed past and landed on a bush just ahead of me. The yellow body suggested it was a female or immature species, and when I got home, I found it was a blacktailed skimmer, another dragonfly species I hadn't recorded before,
mating pair of black hairstreaks
black hairstreak
the black hairstreaks were located in the bushes either side of this gate
black tailed skimmer
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